


Once there was a way to get back homeward

by crimsonepitaph



Series: Soldiers Verse [1]
Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Mild Language, Minor Character Death, Psychological Torture, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared leads an elite counterterrorist team. When he meets the new guy, Jensen, sparks fly. Jared knows getting involved is a bad idea, but Jensen's persistence is hard to resist. Missions become more complicated, and when they go wrong - when not everyone makes it out, and what happens after is the stuff of nightmares - the consequences may be too much to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Art

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1:** Inspired by the TV show The Unit, and the book it was based on, Inside Delta Force by E. Haney. Title, lyrics from the Beatles song, Golden Slumbers.
> 
>  **Author's note #2** : This story contains idealized notions. Tried my best with research, but it is, ultimately, a limited perspective brought to the context - I apologize for any mistakes and inaccuracies. 
> 
> **Author's note #3** : I could write a thank you note as long as the story (longer) for _borgmama1of5_ . As already established, she's quite amazing. If this fic is anything remotely readable, it's her doing. She was endlessly patient in editing this fic, in discussing ideas, in giving me advice and suggestions. I couldn't have done it without her.
> 
> A huge thank you goes to the very talented _loverstar_ , who made a gorgeous poster that matches the story perfectly.
> 
> Last but not least, thank you to _wendy_ , for all her hard work in running this amazing challenge and patience in dealing with a clueless first-timer like me.

 


	2. Art

 

There are only colors.

Grey. Granite. Solid, real. Walls and chains. Hard, cold steel against too hot skin.

Blue. Stripes of sapphire, lacking creamy white foam clouds. Black. Bars. Unreachable lens to an outside picture. Light. Freedom.

Yellow. Stomach-churning, nauseating proof of weakness. Darker. He doesn’t want to think.

Crimson. Deep, crusty. Painted across the floor. Nuances of pain, hues of agony.

Black. Morbid mold, grotesque shadows – filth. Darkness, consuming him.

There was never anything more.

Green. Memories.

 

Shapes.

Mindless, transient fragments contorted, twisted together in nothing. And everything. Existence limited, narrow, restricted to meters.

A box, magnified, proportions lacking, dimensions distorted. A rectangle, barred, taunting – it still exists.  _Outside_ isn’t just a dream.

Raw. Never-ending.  Himself and nothing else.

It’s not sense. Not when he can’t feel, when thoughts are just waves, crashing, swallowed by an ocean of darkness.

 

An oath.

_…further, faster, and fight harder than any other soldier_ _._

He doesn’t quit. In blood, in him, inherent. He can’t. Only forward. 

_…keep myself mentally alert, physically strong, and morally straight._

Laughter. Maybe his. He’s not incredibly complex. Fearless by need, survivor by nature. Process of thought, reason and instinct. Courage. Training. Past into present. Surrender not an option. Faith. 

_…I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be, one hundred percent and then some._

Drifting. Floating. Then lucid. Coherent. Soldier. All he ever wanted to be. Man. Fallible and not. Code of conduct.  _I am an American fighting man._ Values. The flag, honor, loyalty.

_Never shall I fail my comrades._

Love.

 

The door opens. The metal screeches – the world tilts dangerously, dims around the edges. Hands, on him. Pain. New, and old. Again. Questions. Different. Sins. Illusions of martyrdom. Shades of immoral. They want confessions. He gives the same answer. Over and over. Always the same. Mantra, survival, evasion, resistance.

Name.  Rank.  Service number. Till voice hoarse.

And pain, again.


	3. Part One

It’s Jensen’s turn. He opens the door. About-face, parade rest – motion ingrained, mechanism stuck between defense and shrouded defiance. Imperceptible quiver. His calloused fingers long for the cool touch of a gun, of self-assured action. Thumbs press together, palms lock in familiar stillness.

He waits.

Colonel Morgan is silent, imposing, even folded behind a desk. There’s no hint, no clear verdict in dark brown eyes – harsh, world-weary shadows in flecks of tawny, in specks of gold. Wide shoulders fill the wooden chair, muscles ripple and stretch under the uniform as he leans forward, calculated movement and hard-bitten truth behind it. His features bear a tone of impossibly neutral, nerve-wrecking blankness, years tallied in the slight indentations.

A tiny smirk hints at the notion of the human behind the commander, and Morgan finally speaks, voice low and rumbling. A deep bark, carrying the slightest hint of amusement.

“Welcome aboard, Sergeant Ackles. We’d be honored to have you with us.”

The colonel stands, hand outstretched in open invitation. It’s disconcerting. Morgan’s openly smiling now – and it hits Jensen. Suspecting all along a game, a ruse – maybe a final test. No. He made it. The best of the best – the elite – and it includes him. It’s not relief he’s feeling. His posture relaxes all the same. Maybe it’s pride. He meets Morgan’s firm grip with composed assurance, and allows himself a smile.

Pleasantries, a salute.

He’s dismissed.

 

  
~

  
  
Jensen ceases to exist as a fighting man. At least, in the regular Army. Records are pulled, he’s deemed a glorified paper-pusher. The whole unit masquerades as a non-combat division. Fatigues are lost in favor of civilian clothing – to all the world, they’re harmless.  
  
Which couldn’t be farther from the truth. They’re not just good – they’re the best at what they do. Deadly, human machines, fire scorching earth, a lethal combination of calm, composure, instinct, intuition – skill.   
  
He made it.  
  
It was never about approval, or validation. Just moving forward. Desire thrumming through his veins – fulfilling his Army oath, carrying the Army values. The best he knows how, a life he’s chosen and was made for. He’s proud. It’s all worth it.  


 

~

  
He reports to the compound at zero six hundred hours. Everything’s the same. The cracks in the hallway ceiling, the indistinct grey color. He’s different – he sees it all through the eyes of a man belonging, cobwebs of short-lived self-doubt vanquished.  
  
At the end of the corridor, Alpha Team’s barreling forward, rhythmic cadence of footsteps on hollow-sounding ground. He doesn’t have time to speak. A man, short to his six-foot-one stature, throws him a knowing look with a matching grin.  
  
“New guy, right?”  
  
Jensen nods.  
  
“Grab your gear, we’re heading out.”  
  
He’s worked for this. Dreaming all his life, concessions, sacrifice, and ultimately self-inflicted wounds, all in the name of duty, an ideal sustaining a life that would have crumbled otherwise. Jensen’s left a little dumbfounded.  
  
There are no more rules. Only the unexpected.  
  


 

~

  
An hour later, he’s in the air, thirty thousand feet up in a specially commissioned business jet – a far cry from the rawness of a C-130 Combat Talon. Jarringly new mindset. The feeling, aircraft floor made of soft carpet, not rubber bags of fuel. It’s easy. Easy to be the entity, part of the force, and not a man, the frailty, the weakness. It’s energy, diffused, molded in an omnipresent state of mind.  
  
The trip gives him time. To study, to get to know men, brothers with bonds already forged in combat, in death, in instinct, in choices. In trust.  
  
There’s Chris – Master Sergeant Kane. Long brown hair, blue eyes, and cocky grin. Short, stocky, but impressive all the same. He’s bent over in a leather seat that dwarfs him, cleaning guns, checking ammo, frown lines deepened in concentration. Jensen imagines a wisp of hay peeking out between Kane’s lips. It fits, somehow, even in civvies, Kane holds himself like a cowboy. Jensen’s startled from his assessment when blue eyes meet his, twinkling, fire burning behind.  
  
“Last time somebody stared at me this hard, we ended up in bed together.”  
  
A frisson of tension, wondering which way to go. Lie, deflect, let Kane draw his own conclusions – or honesty. He pauses, searches for an out. But – he’s never backed down, never made excuses for who he is.  
  
 “Not my type, Sergeant.”  
  
Jensen throws in a little smirk for good measure.  
  
“I like my men a little taller.”  
  
There are a few beats of silence – but if he’s surprised, Kane doesn’t show it. Instead, a devious shit-eating grin lightens up his harsh features.  
  
“Oh, the boss is gonna love you.”  
  
If Jensen wasn’t sure that Kane knew about two thousand ways of killing someone – slowly and painfully, and probably using only his pinky and a paperclip – he’d point out the giggle that spills past Kane’s lips. He’s entirely too gleeful for the look that flickers across his face to be something good.  
  
“Right.” Jensen quirks an eyebrow, but figures he’ll make sense of it soon enough. For now, more pertinent matters. “Where is he?”  
  
Kane picks up the standard issue .9 mm Beretta, fingers caressing the safety switch. He doesn’t take his eyes off it.  
  
“Meeting us there.”  
  
That’s all he’s going to get, he guesses. It’s enough. Jensen’s not a talker – and the Army drilled patience into him. A tall figure drops in the seat across from him. Aldis. Sergeant First Class Hodge. Long limbs, broad shoulders twisted in what should be an awkward posture. It isn’t – he’s oddly graceful, a deadly shadow of movement. A thin scar mars the length of his right cheekbone, mesmerizing contrast to the man’s round, warm, chocolate eyes.  
  
“Forty minutes out. Car’s waiting on the ground.”  
  
With that, Aldis closes his eyes – after a few moments, his breathing evens, his body goes limp. If Kane’s a hothead, Hodge’s the other side of the coin. Smart man – sleep’s a rare, hard-won occurrence on missions. Jensen follows his example, tilts his head back – closes his eyes, relaxes in the decadently comfortable seat.  
  
A cadence worms its way into his mind. He drifts off.  


 

~

  
Jensen wakes up to a hand on his shoulder. Sergeant First Class Steve Carlson. Wisps of short, dirty blond hair frame blue-grey eyes – azure and granite. Carlson flashes an unexpected, albeit genuine smile.  
  
He motions towards the exit – they’ve arrived. Jensen watches him go. Carlson has the body of a swimmer – lean, hard muscle under every inch of skin.  
  
It’s reflexive – observational skills honed to perfection – tradecraft, evaluating his surroundings, taking in the scene. Means of survival. Sometimes, he hates it. Hates that he can read so much into simple gestures, never take a smile at face value. It’s a way of life, a side to the perfect soldier – humanity cast in shapes lost in an ever-changing dynamic.  
  
Jensen gets out. The sun’s blazing. His new life begins.  


 

~

  
They meet in a hotel room, painfully bland, but spacious. That’s not the first thing Jensen sees, though. A man, bent over the dark wooden table in the middle, tracing invisible lines along a multicolored sheet of paper. Long, dexterous fingers move undeterred by the intrusion. Jensen notes the scraped knuckles, skin angry red, hand extending and flexing as he trails it across the map. So focused, precision measured in millimeters.  
  
The occupant of the room speaks, though he doesn’t raise his gaze. There’s a soft rustle as paper crinkles under his touch.  
  
“Took you long enough, ladies.”  
  
There’s a smile in his voice – low, covered in gravel, reverberating across the room.  
  
“They nixed the parachutes, boss. Apparently, landing on top a’ the hotel ain’t the best idea.”  
  
Sergeant Major Padalecki, then.   
  
“Not on your ass, it ain’t, Kane.”  
  
“One time, Carlson. One fucking time. Fucking guerillas blowing me out of the sky, you think I care which part of me reaches blessed earth first?”  
  
Carlson doesn’t bother to hide his smirk.  
  
“You blabbered on about your sore backside for two weeks.”  
  
“Fuck you, I didn’t. ‘Sides, Sarge here whines about his all the time.”  
  
At that, the man straightens, brings himself up to full height. Jensen’s struck dumb. On principle alone, men in ponytails should not look this intimidating. A strand of light brown hair falls along his cheek, and fluid hazel eyes lock on Jensen. Padelecki’s dressed in dark suit pants, black suspenders over a crisp white shirt holding them up. The underarm holster does nothing to dull the first impression – just draws attention to impossibly wide shoulders tapering down to narrow waist.  
  
Padalecki’s grinning – and there are dimples.  _Dimples._ Because every professional badass should look like a kid waiting for Santa.  
  
“Not my fault nobody can resist this fine ass, Kane.”  
  
Jensen would be inclined to agree. Hodge, the voice of reason, derails his train of thought.  
  
“Quit it, you morons.  You’re scaring the recruit. ”  
  
Kane snorts.  
  
“Don’t worry, Aldis. Ackles here bats for the rainbow team.”  
  
There’s a flicker in the implausibly complex mosaic of color shifting in Padalecki’s eyes as he stares at Jensen, a reaction subdued in shades of emotion – but it’s gone in an instant, too fast for Jensen to make sense of it. The smile stays. Sergeant Major’s gaze hardens. His tone becomes firm, commanding.  
  
“Right. Kane, Carlson – airport. Pick up the package. Hodge – you’re coordinating with the local outfit. Ackles, you’re with me.”  
  
And then there’s motion. In under five minutes, they’re all dressed in identical black suits, earpieces in place, face set in determination. They’re off.  
  
Padalecki barks a few more orders as the men exit.  
  
They’re the only people left in the room.  
  
Jensen looks up from the files he’s been handed, abandons his reading when a huge hand hovers a few inches over his chest. He reacts instinctively, has Padalecki in a wrist lock in two seconds flat.  
  
“Not bad, Ackles.” Apparently, there’s nothing that can wipe that stupid smile off his CO’s face. Not even potential limb loss. “Was going for your tie, though.” His grin becomes impossibly wider. “It’s crooked.”  
  
Jensen loosens his hold. Grudgingly.  
  
“They teach you the Double Windsor in bootcamp, boss?”  
  
In the next instant, Padalecki’s behind him. Unexpectedly close – hot puffs of air tickle Jensen’s ear when he speaks.  
  
 “No, didn’t have time with all the knitting.”  
  
Jensen fights the unexpected shiver as his collar goes up – the silk tie slides smoothly between huge hands, able fingers tugging and twisting in practiced movement. “Just wanted to get a few things straight, Sergeant Ackles.” Padalecki maneuvers the long end, looping it over in one swift motion. “So, you passed Selection.”  
  
Jensen thinks this isn’t what the Army had in mind when they taught him interrogation resistance techniques. It works all the same. His voice comes out surprisingly even.  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
 The wide part of tie comes to cover the knot that’s formed. Padalecki shifts closer, inspects his work. They’re not touching. It’s intentional, that small distance – Jensen feels the body behind him, huge and hard – yet there’s no contact. Just a threat, a warning. Limits.  
  
“You know you’re good, then. So no cocky shit, no puffin’ your feathers. Nobody’s here to blow wind up our skirts.” Padalecki tightens his grip, brings his hand around the collar. He pulls. Jensen doesn’t flinch. “We get our orders, smile pretty, shoot  _Yes sirs_  out of our asses and do it our way anyway.”  
  
Padalecki steps back in front of Jensen.  
  
“Basically, we blow up shit and pretend we don’t enjoy it.”  
  
Jensen quirks an eyebrow – grins. He can work with this.  
  
 “Warms my heart, sir. That was one hell of a speech.”  
  
Padalecki pauses, regards him for a moment.  
  
“Feisty.” He chuckles, slips on his suit jacket. “We’re gonna have fun, you and I, aren’t we?”  
  
“Aw, bet you say that to all the boys, Sergeant.”  
  
“Nah, Ackles. Only the real pretty ones.”  
  
With that, he slides out the door. Jensen wonders if his tie ever needed fixing. He follows.  


 

~

  
Jensen, does not, in fact, get to blow anything up.  
  
Not on the first mission.  
  
Not for another two.  
  
He does, however, get a crash course in Devious Minds 101.  
  
Jensen doesn’t know what to expect. They’re good guys. That doesn’t mean jack shit in the Army. Not when you’re fresh meat.  
  
It takes ten push-ups for Jensen to define  _combat loading_. Four for  _assault echelon_. By the time they get to  _lead Service or agency for common-user logistics_ , he kind of figures out that something’s up. He’s in the middle of reciting  _mechanics for an assault against an entrenched position_  in the middle of push-up number eleven when the Colonel passes them in the hallway. Morgan does a double take, barely holds back a snicker.  
  
He cordially informs Jensen that he is not, in fact, required to do that as a new recruit. Jensen mumbles a  _Yessir_  and resumes glaring at the bastards he calls teammates currently crying with laughter as they walk down the hall in the other direction.  


 

~

  
It’s routine.  
  
Or good planning on the Colonel’s part.  
  
They get easy missions. Easy meaning there’s just a  _slight_ chance of death and limb loss.  
  
There’s always two ways of doing things.  
  
Jensen learns Padalecki goes with the batshit crazy, borderline insane, how-is-he-still-alive approach. But he’s a fighter down to the last fiber – passion, commitment and belief. Duty. Nothing before it.  
  
So Jensen follows.  
  
They’re assembling for the next job –  _freaking Panama –_ and Jensen half-heartedly complains about it to Hodge.  
  
He gets a frown in response. Hodge stops to knock on the closest door. “Bite your tongue, man” he snaps, “Sayin’ something like that is just begging for this to go south!”  
  
Jensen raises an eyebrow in question, but he’s a smart man, so he shuts up.  
  
The job’s simple. Well, simpler than recovering nuclear missiles from particularly unfriendly countries. Or defusing bombs with sewing needles and potholders. Protection detail – walk in the park, really.  
  
The Principal – the protectee – is the daughter of the Vice President. It’s an official visit – as official as Sangria and a cold cerveza really make a meeting where the future of a country is discussed. Averting World War III doesn’t seem to concern her, either. The girl’s interests seem to lie more with the Ralph Lauren fall collection.  
  
Babysitting duty – it’d be fun, really. Except if Jensen hears that almost-bat-high-pitched I-found-another-pair-of shoes screech one more fucking time – forget the rebels – he’s killing her himself.  
  
Also, inappropriate touching. Jensen has to peel her off him every time he looks sideways. It doesn’t help that Padalecki’s laughing his ass off.  
  
Cliche born out of privilege, smarts hidden, a real person masked under pricey denim and lace, under spoiled and snarky. Jensen doesn’t really comprehend her. But that’s not his job.  
  
By the end of their shift, Jensen’s exhausted. And cranky. You’d think, with all the touching, she’d have figured out he’s not a machine. He really has to pee, too.  But they’re finally at the hotel – blissful home for the time being, and the urge to smother her comes down to a manageable level. He knows more than he ever needed to about the kid’s taste in panties.  
  
They’re just getting out of the car – Padalecki in front, the girl in the middle, when the first shot rings out. It’s always the same – dry hostile desert, bumfuck nowhere on the battlefield, busy city street corner – the same echo, the same sharp notes. Crack, rattle. Inconsistent bursts, chaos – she’s screaming. Jensen shoves her to the ground – instinct takes over.  
  
He hears Padalecki shout  _White, Charlie, two,_ and springs into action. Across the street, front of the building, third floor, second window. Snipers. He peers over the hood. Blemished paint gives way to holes made by bullets. The rebels aren’t hard to spot – and he has the car as a cover. It’ll be over soon.  Jensen takes aim – shoots. There’s a falter in the attackers’ rhythm.  
  
Kids with toy guns versus perfect shooters. Not really an exchange. Jensen’s calm, hand steady on the gun as he strokes the trigger.  
  
But, apparently,  _stay the fuck down_ was too hard of a command to process – the girl’s making a run for it. Jensen understands the need, the urge to scramble for cover. Still. They’re Special Forces for a reason.  
  
There’s a  _motherfucker_  hissed to his left, and Padalecki’s sprinting, tackling her to the ground, still shooting as he hits the hard pavement. The second he makes contact, Padalecki contracts, blankets her with his enormous body.  
  
Two things happen at once. Christmas comes early for the snipers. Target’s in the open. Easy prey – more of a sitting duck. But too eager – they abandon position.  Easy pickings for men who slump under the weight of marksmanship badges.  
  
Game over.  
  
Silence. Eerie, blurry fog of smoke dissolving. Burnt charcoal, metallic twang, and sulfur. Gunpowder.  
  
Then, curses. Padalecki rolls off his objective.  
  
Jensen helps the girl up. Then he sees. Red, crimson splattered over her frilly, champagne-colored top. Shit.  
  
“Where did they get you?” he demands urgently.  
  
“Unbunch your panties, Ackles. It’s not her blood.” Jensen spins his head to the Sergeant Major. The bastard almost looks happy. Smug. “It’s mine. Take care of her.”  
  
Well then, that’s settled. Jensen helps the shaking, sobbing mess to the hotel lobby, where Chris intercepts her. He shoots a half-worried, half-pissed look at Jensen. Jensen keeps his mouth shut.  
  
Back outside. Collect the bodies. No, first, check on Padalecki. Status, currently scooping a bullet out of his leg. With a pocket knife. In the backseat of a car.  
  
Outstanding.  
  
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”  
  
“It bugged me.”  
  
Jensen searches his face, looks for the hint of humor. None. The man is serious.  
  
“What? ‘s just a graze.”  
  
“There’s a hole in your thigh.”  
  
“Details.” Padalecki produces gauze – first aid kit in the car. “See, no arteries, no veins. All bark and no bite.” He’s grinning, and Jensen stops arguing. He’s seen enough wounds to know this one’s not life-threatening. Jensen helps wrap it – if you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em – and snakes a hand around Padalecki’s waist when he climbs out of the car to steady him.  
  
It’s pointless. Padalecki takes two shaky steps, then starts running – limping – around, growling orders, snarling curses and generally making everyone else feel the brunt of his wrath over a failed assignment. He turns, throws Jensen a wink. Then he goes back to yelling at the supposed bodyguards the hotel hired.  
  
Jensen decides the Sergeant Major’s crazy.  
  
Not psycho. They have tests for that in Selection.  


 

~

  
The visit’s cut short. Attempted assassination tends to do that – ruins the shopping mood. The girl’s alive, though. The Colonel will get to shake hand with the Vice-President at the next meeting. All’s good on this side of the world.  
  
They hitch a ride back to Fort Griffith on a small cargo plane. Rusty metal floor, bunched between gear and equipment – it feels more like home than comfort ever does.  
  
Padalecki’s in front, propped against the back of the passenger seat. His long legs are splayed, right one lifted on a dusty rucksack. He’s talking with the pilot. Joking. Laughing softly, perfect rows of pearly white teeth bared – carefree. Carefree, in that practiced manner – not all the way to genuine, to real. Jensen shuts his eyes for a moment.  
  
It’s easy, getting lost in the rhythm. Wind howling, sound compressed in steady vibration – until Jensen feels something hit him. It gets him square in the chest. An empty canteen of water. A mischievously dimpled grin marks the culprit.  
  
He raises an eyebrow.  
  
“You good, Ackles?”  
  
Kane and Carlson are sound asleep, and Hodge seems entirely too immersed in  _Shogun_ to even notice.  
  
“I’m not the one with the bum leg there, Long John Silver.”  
  
Padalecki raises an eyebrow.  
  
“That bad?”  
  
“Well, sir, you  _were_  hopping around like a drunk energizer bunny.”  
  
He eyes Jensen for a moment. Then breaks out into the loudest, most infectious laughter.  
  
“You’re a funny guy, Ackles. This doesn’t work out, we might keep you around for the jokes anyway.”  
  
Jensen grins back.  
  
It’s a few moments before Padalecki speaks again. This time, his tone is grim, detached. Hollow. Yet still filled with conviction.  
  
“World War I started with an assassination. Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife Sophie, Sarajevo, 1914.”  
  
Jensen waits. He doesn’t know if there’s a point to this history lesson.  
  
“Granted, it was an excuse to attack. It doesn’t matter. Final tally was fifteen million dead. Another twenty million, wounded.” He sighs, relaxes. “What I’m trying to say is, just because something doesn’t seem all that important, doesn’t mean it’s not. Depends what side you’re on, I guess.”  
  
Jensen gets it. Mistake means court-martial, death, or worse.  Job well done, no credit or praise. But the bigger picture – that’s why this system works. Cogs in a machine, essential pieces. Hidden – ever-changing, evolving, morphing into what the country needs them to be.  
  
This time, when Padalecki speaks, his voice is softer. Lighter.  
  
“Anyway. That was a good job, Jensen.”  
  
It’s small. It shouldn’t matter.  
  
Jensen doesn’t break out a smile. But he’s damn close to it.

 

 


	4. Part Two

  
Jared should quit. But it’s part of him. By now, it’s not even thinking. Rhythmic. Inhale. The tightness in his chest, the burn – he loves it. He blows out a cloud of smoke. It’s calming. The unit psychologist fed him some bullshit – combat stress induced by frequent deployment. Jared didn’t tell him he was fourteen when he stole the first pack from his mom.

He crushes the cigarette butt on the rim of the ashtray.

He’d change his clothes, but it’s pointless.

She’d know anyway.

~

  
Jared lets himself in. It’s a lesson he learned when Sandy went into labor and fell in the upstairs bathroom. Making a duplicate key costs much less than door replacing. He’s three feet in when an overly enthusiastic, miniature human covered in flour meets him in what is part waist-high crushing hug, part dangerous collision.  
  
“Uncle Jay!”  
  
She’s beaming – takes a step back, inspects the new white design on Jared’s black t-shirt and dark leather jacket. Disturbingly unrepentant.  
  
Her expression changes. She wrinkles her nose, her eyes narrow to slits.  
  
“You smell funny.” She fixes him with a stern look. Not even the Colonel can pull off that one. “Mommy said you shouldn’t smoke.”  
  
Jared rolls his eyes, ruffles her curly blond hair.  
  
“Hi to you too, Ali.”  
  
Big, brown eyes look up at him adoringly before she turns on her heels, drags him to the kitchen by a belt loop.  
  
“Come on, we’re building a roof cake!”  
  
Sure enough, Sandy’s putting together the last pieces of chocolate goodness. It does look like a roof. Kind of. It’s shaped like a triangle. Jared wisely decides not to comment on that.  
  
“Hey, Sandy.”  
  
She does look up at that. A small smile plays, carves soft lines across delicate features. It doesn’t reach her eyes, though, gets lost somewhere between the wish and the execution.  
  
“Hey, how’s the leg, soldier?”  
  
Jared gives a perfected eye roll.  
  
“Fine. Running hurts like a motherfucker, though. “  
  
Sandy slaps his hand away from the cream bowl with the whisk as Ali chuckles.  
  
“Language.”  
  
Jared drops a kiss to her cheek in apology, then moves on to Ayden. He dodges a fruit puree missile.  
  
“Hey, little man.”  
  
Jared picks him up from the baby chair – still so tiny. Jared’s huge hands envelop him. Seven months – his eyes still have that greyish-blue color. Though, if he had to guess, he thinks they’ll still be blue when he’s older. Like his father’s.  
  
“So, how are you guys doing?”  
  
Jared tries to keep his tone level, without inflection.  
  
“We’re fine, Jared.” A pause – just a few beats. “Just like we always are.”  
  
Jared wishes she would stop smiling like that. Wide. Painfully fake - plastered. He remembers. A genuine grin – he hasn’t seen it in forever. Ten months. It’s worse than tears.  
  
“So, how’s the new guy working out?”  
  
The change in subject is about as subtle as an armored tank rolling over a bicycle. Jared goes with it. He doesn’t want to talk about it either.  
  
  
“He’s good.”  
  
Sharp. Quick on his feet, rolls with the punches – smart, patient, able to handle himself when things go sideways. Hotter than sin. Beautiful. Strong. Patient. Funny. Gorgeous.  
  
 _Good._  
  
“I hear he’s cute.”  
  
Understatement.  
  
“He’s on the team. That means  _under my command_ , Sandy.”  
  
She rolls her eyes – apparently, it’s contagious. Ayden takes that moment to smack his tiny palm against Jared’s cheek, smearing leftover peach sauce over his stubble. Then laughs. Tiny, crystalline, and toothless. Proud of himself.  
  
These are definitely Chad’s kids.  
  
Jared’s just about to ask Sandy for a napkin. Then he sees her eyes, dull and blank - lifeless. Lost in other times, past and imperfect present.  
  
“You can come ogle him on Sunday. Kane’s throwing the welcome barbecue.”  
  
It works. She snaps back to the default smile.  
  
“I can’t.” Her eyes shimmer, settle on glassy brown. “Seeing you all together … it’s too much. The only thing I could think of is that he should be in the picture, too.”  
  
Reflexive reaction.  _I’m sorry_  over and over. It’s all he’s got. His doing, and Jared can’t even tell her.  
  
“I don’t need you to be sorry, Jared. “ Her tone changes. It doesn’t break. She’s strong. It doesn’t make it any easier to hear. “I just need for him to be here.”  
  
He doesn’t know what to say to that. Ali’s still looking at him like he holds all the answers. He settles for rubbing soothing circles on Ayden’s back.  
  


~

  
Jared runs. Thoughtless, brief non-existence. Just movement. His mind – quiet. His body – complying. Dull ache that’s always there. World fading out of focus. Tattered edges of sane, and _here,_ threaded in a mindless blur.  
  
Jared runs, chases an unattainable ideal.  
  


~

  
Jensen arrives a little early, brings a bottle of wine with him. ‘Cause his momma raised him right. Well, his brother. He plasters on a smile.  
  
Chris quirks an eyebrow, bursts out laughing when Kelly, his wife, lets out an  _Aw,_ and pinches his cheek.  
  
The whole squadron’s there. He meets the wives, the kids. Knows some of Bravo team from stopping in  _The Devil’s Own,_ the bar on post – the owner’s Irish. But this is all new territory – Alpha, Bravo, the families. Hour and a half later, he finds Carlson and Hodge at a table in a corner of the yard.  Padalecki’s nowhere in sight.  
  
Jensen lets himself drop down in one of the plastic chairs.  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ.”  
  
They smirk, hand him a bottle of beer.  
  
“Get used to it. They’re your family, too, now.”  
  
Terrifying thought. Although, there is some comfort to be taken in the feeling.  
  
The conversation’s easy. Kane and Dick Speight, Bravo team’s officer in command, join them after a while. He finds out nicknames. Stories. The kind born out of need, bred over corpses and covered in blood.  
  
Hodge smirks, makes a show of flexing his biceps when Kane announces he’s Gladiator. There’s a story, a loincloth, and way too much information, Jensen decides.  
  
Carlson laughs, almost chokes on his beer in his haste to let everybody in on the joke.  
  
Jensen’s heard the Sergeant Major’s nickname through the grapevine. It makes as much sense as a cow wearing a tutu and practicing ballet. He asks.  
  
“Oh man, it pisses Padalecki off like you wouldn’t believe,” Kane chortles.  
  
Steve chimes in.  
  
“You would be pissed too, Kane, if your call sign was  _Marshmallow.”_  
  
Jensen waits for the explanation.  
  
“You know how in prison they call the biggest guy Tiny?”  
  
Kane raises an expectant eyebrow.  
  
“Yeah…” Jensen squints against the afternoon glare of the sun. Thinks harder. “Oh.  _Oh.”_  
  
Everybody laughs. It’s fact, though. Man’s huge brass balls might as well greet the New Year in Times Square. Minus the glow-in-the-dark part, bonus the nerves of steel.  
  
“So…Padalecki got something against steak or Ackles?”  
  
Speight’s three sheets to the wind by now – he passed brain to mouth filter around the fourth beer. Kane frowns, but answers.  
  
“Neither, man. He’s helping Sandy move out. The year’s up, she’s going back to her parents.”  
  
“Man’s spending so much time with her, you’d think they were married.”  
  
The joke falls flat. There’s a sudden tension rippling through the group. In a synchronized motion, Alpha team’s eyes darken, mouths purse in a thin line. Hodge speaks, but it’s more of a hiss.  
  
“Don’t go there, Speight.”  
  
“I’m just saying, he ain’t even getting pussy for his trouble.”  
  
Fists clench around the table. Kane looks ready to throttle him.  
  
One of Steve’s kids comes up to him with a scraped knee, sobbing. It breaks the moment. Steve picks her up, walks inside without a word. His face still looks thunderous. Dick must have  _some_ common sense – he backs down. Holds his hands up, mutters something along the lines of  _“Fucking faggot, anyway.”_  and makes his way back to his buddies.  
  
Jensen grits his teeth, keeps himself from snarling back. He’s not the only one.  
  
“Drunk fuckin’ asshole.”  
  
There’s a nod of agreement around the table. Jensen relaxes somewhat.  
  
“Do I want to know what that was about?”  
  
Kane studies him for a moment.  
  
“Sandy was Chad’s wife.”  
  
“Chad?”  
  
“The guy whose place you took.”  
  
It’s not malicious, just matter-of-fact. Like death is, in their business.  
  
“How?”  
  
“Hot zone. Blackhawk picking us up got caught in the crossfire. Crashed. Chad met one of the rotors with his gut.”  
  
Jensen’s seen enough. Too much, by civilian standards. He knows. But Chris isn’t done.  
  
“Pretty much cut in two. He was still gurgling blood, callin’ for Sandy and Ali. He was done for, just not quick enough.” Kane pauses, watches Jensen’s reaction as he continues. “Padalecki took care of it.”  
  
Mercy. That’s all they have. Humanity.  
  
“Ain’t gonna sugarcoat it, Ackles. Padalecki didn’t flinch. Think you can’t serve under someone like that, I suggest you find some transfer papers.”  Kane takes another swig of his beer. “Sooner rather than later.”  
  
Jensen nods – he has absolutely no intention of doing that – and fastens on a detail. “Ali?”  
  
“Chad’s daughter. Had a son, too. Born two months and change after – kid never met his dad.”  
  
Hodge speaks up, voice softer.  
  
“Sarge’s been looking after them. We all have. But he and Bunny – Chad – were tight. Enlisted together, were attached at the hip.” He lets out a tiny laugh, but it’s a long way to happy. “Both crazy motherfuckers.”  
  
Steve, returning from his peroxide trip, joins in.  
  
“Had some good ones. There was this one time – we’re cooped up in a basement. Waiting for our shot, we ain’t moving – Casper stealthy and all that shit. There ain’t a sound, you could hear Kane’s eggs and bacon making their way through his stomach – and then Chad, the little fucker, out of nowhere – points his rifle and shoots. We’re sure he saw something, so Padalecki gives the go, we take the shot, and in under a minute, it’s rainin’ hellfire, we’re all systems go, we don’t spare anything. Chad’s a little shifty by the end, so I ask him what the fuck was it that he saw – and the moron, with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen, doesn’t bat an eye, he says to me –  _a spider.”_  
  
“Wasn’t wrong, though. Few more seconds and we woulda been toast. Fucker saved our asses.”  
  
It’s Padalecki’s voice, same rasp, gives Jensen the same shiver. He comes up behind Jensen. Chris raises his beer in greeting.  
  
“Started to think you were gonna be a no-show, boss.”  
  
“And miss Ackles’ first flight into the crazy?”  
  
Jensen groans.  
  
“Negotiating a hostage exchange is so much fucking easier than telling Kelly I had enough lemonade.”  
  
Padalecki laughs, doesn’t bother hiding the appreciative grin.  
  
He stays for a drink.  
  
They don’t talk about Chad.  
  


~

  
Apparently bedtimes are waived for these gatherings. Adults are still socializing, kids still running riot past the time Jensen would have expected the rug rats to be herded home. A miniature F-22 Raptor flies above his head. Jensen locates the take-off zone on the stairs. Padalecki’s seated on the highest step off the back deck. Stack of paper at his side, he folds an intricate design, flat planes and crisp corners. An Airliner 717 floats above the kids’ heads. They watch the smooth landing, eyes wide.  
  
Jensen watches as practiced fingers slide over slick texture. He recognizes the edges of the F-16 Falcon. Jensen must get a little lost in the motions – it floats straight into his lap, his thigh a landing strip less all the fancy lighting.  
  
Apparently, Padalecki throwing random objects at Jensen is his CO’s new hobby. Jensen takes the tiny plane in hand. It’s flawless. But studying aircrafts in case of hijackings to the point of gouging your eyeballs out will do that to a guy.  
  
Jensen sends it back, mindful of wind and weight distribution. It touches down by Padalecki’s feet, parallel to his boots, facing the house. Perfect landing.  Padalecki raises his gaze, shoots Jensen an unreadable smile. Jensen’s starting to keep track of the variation. Dimples, or not. Lips curved, slight tilt in the right corner. It’s not always like that. Maybe it’s his imagination.  
  
Padalecki goes back to crafting the plane mock-ups. The kids are ecstatic. Glorified balloon maker, Special Forces version.  
  
Jensen lingers for just a second too long, captivated by flexing biceps, rippling forearm veins.  
  
He goes to find another drink.  
  


~

 

The setting sun casts a golden shadow, bathes everything in a pale shade of tawny, tender illusion of a different life. Sky blue changed to faint red and copper – it suits the quiet. They’re the only ones left – the team. Kids and mothers gone inside, exhausted. There’s still laughter. Just dimmed, more relaxed.  
  
Padalecki’s still lounging near the stairs with a cigarette. He’s standing against the rail at the bottom – outline lost in smoke, the perfect picture fuzzy, blurring with each drag. His eyes are fixed somewhere on the horizon – fire dissolved, melted in an ageless rust trickling down, seeping into the dusky contour of a far-away mountain.  
  
Jensen doesn’t look. Not when he doesn’t know what it means, why it should matter.  
  
Jensen makes a grab for another bottle. His hand brushes the tip of an F-15 Eagle. The miniature Air Force is scattered all over, crumpled, or covered in barbecue sauce from the spirited battle that had ensued when the kids had appropriated Padalecki’s handiwork. He doesn’t pay it much attention. Until he notices the black marker. There, in a messy scrawl –  _Enjoying yourself, soldier?_  
  
Sitting there for a while, by the sodden state of it. Jensen doesn’t send it back. He takes a napkin that doesn’t look like it went ten rounds with a two-year-old, smooth ~~e~~ es it out. The markers are all over – kids were quite ecstatic to brand the plastic cups and planes as their possessions. He takes one, scribbles his answer.  
  
 _Not as much as yourself, Sergeant Major._ Jensen grabs a toothpick, sticks the paper with it, arranges it on a toy car forgotten in the chaos. Sends it rolling to the boss.  
  
He suppresses a grin. The Rangers – by air, by land, by sea.  
  
A Delta Fighter bears a return message.  _So you like my party trick._  
  
Thank God for with the random mess of toys remaining on the table. A miniature firefighter truck bears Jensen’s reply.  _Impressive._  
  
A small, basic dart plane.  _Like you._  
  
A wink.  
  
Jensen kind of stutters for a moment. Looks around. There’s no more tiny cars to use. Fortunately. He doesn’t know what to say, anyway.  
  
Padalecki’s gone when he looks up.  
  


~

  
Home.  
  
Empty. Like it always is. Just ghosts. Dark, an irreversible void – or maybe just failure collapsed in itself, thick and unforgiving. Fears, snakes swaying to an indistinct tune, slithering closer with every doubt –hesitation and uncertainty in a man that should have none.  
  
Quiet. Silence – that silence between heartbeats, eternity turned to dust, sand filtering through a broken hourglass. A latent lethargy Jared gives into, a fragment of himself hovering above a rift, waiting, too tired to be.  
  
Old leather creaks when he sits down. Weak rays of light soak a background built from sawdust and ash. Reality, unsteady – inconspicuous, staggering towards an echo of a broken mind.  
  
A gun, and the ashtray on the table. An extension of himself, an identity he can’t renounce – executioner and judge. A reminder. Weakness. A crutch, an anchor in human, in a slow collapse, lost in jagged edges of fluid smoke figurines.  
  
The football game’s running in the background. Noise. Sound. Oblivion.  
  
He stares, and doesn’t see.  
  
Guilt and fear burn, flicker in shades of sparkling white.  
  
He crushes the cigarette butt on the rim of the ashtray.  
  
Jared waits. For sleep to come, for the hourglass to turn.


	5. Part Three

It’s sunny. It seems like it always is. The heat smothers, creeps in, a smoggy, heavy layer hovering over the range. It’s early. Most days, the hollow thuds and whines match the rhythmic beat of the heart. They pierce lifeless models, paper shredded in accuracy so savage, it gets lost in normal.

The distance, the depth increases. Sweat trickles down hard muscle, soaking, marking hard-earned skill and unyielding determination. He hits the target. Again, and again.

Jensen empties his last clip. Headshots, all of them. There’s a hole where the head used to be. Tattered edges rustle softly in the light breeze. It stays unheard, forgotten between cracks of other bullets – other lives.

He loves starting the mornings like this. A semblance of control, of a routine ingrained years in the making. The range is not elaborate, or anything complex. It’s a field. Grass burnt, more sickly yellow and brown than green, frayed, without defense under the ruthless glow of the sun. There’s a chain link fence, but it only covers two borders. No need for more, anyway. At the far end, the square finishes in a small hill – nothing more than a deformed mound of earth, steep and unwelcoming. The right side stretches until it meets the horizon – endless carpet of dry vegetation and weeds. Jensen wipes a hand over his forehead, makes for the exit – the parking lot.

He passes Speight, gives him a sharp nod. He doesn’t look apologetic. He wouldn’t be. He probably doesn’t even remember his words at the party.

Jensen makes his way across the lot. It’s a stunning sight, he thinks. From Humvees and Desert Patrols to trucks and personnel carriers – even a battle tanks, huge and towering over the lot – the picture’s painted in overwhelming shades of Army green.

He finds his car – his privately owned vehicle, one of few remnants from a previous life – somewhere in the middle, and Jensen’s just about to climb in, when he spots Padalecki. Light jeans painted over long legs, ratty grey t-shirt spread across wide shoulders, already sticking to overheated skin. Dark Aviators cover those piercing hazel eyes – a picture framed by the military green, an image that makes Jensen’s brain and dick fight for attention. When he sees Jensen, the corners of Padalecki’s mouth curve in the same unnerving smile – the one with fifty ways of making his knees weak.

Fuck it, Jensen wants to understand it.

Two long strides, and he’s in front of Padalecki, effectively blocking any escape route short of mowing Jensen down. He has his target trapped between a rusty Humvee and Padalecki’s variation of a redneck truck. It doesn’t take long for Padalecki to figure out what’s going on – but he doesn’t seem bothered. He leans against the hot metal of his truck and crosses his arms, eyes Jensen with a hint of amusement.

Jensen can’t hide his smirk. Nor does he want to. It’s his commanding officer, and it should matter. The actuality is that they’re about the same age, just different lives, traveled similar paths in dissimilar fashion. Truth is, Jensen wants it. He decided somewhere along the two steps it took to get to  _now_. It’s a challenge, and it’s a long time since it has been that. Maybe never. Jensen holds his gaze, ignores the silence.

Padalecki takes off his shades, hooks them in his t-shirt neck – but his eyes never leave Jensen’s. There’s an expectant raise of an eyebrow, a bemused invitation to make the first move. It’s a familiar tension, an imperceptible crackle, a jolt of heat that has nothing to do with the weather – pulsing, throbbing unseen, ever since hands tangled in Jensen’s tie.

Jensen shifts closer. He leans forward, spreads his palm over the faded crimson paint of the side panel. It burns under his touch. He doesn’t feel it. Jensen’s too busy watching how hard Padalecki’s trying to hide the way his body reacts to the closeness, the rigid posture and stiff grin. It’d take only Jensen’s other hand coming full circle to bracket him, to trap Padalecki and take all the answers.

Jensen doesn’t do it. He leaves them both an option.

“So,  _boss._ I gather you like me.”

Padalecki doesn’t look surprised – not really. His expression is carefully blank – except, it’s a special brand of it, complete with dazzling smile. His voice doesn’t crack, or take another pitch. It’s steady and self-reliant. Confident. The same confidence he has when he’s staring down the barrel of a gun.

“That’s because I do, Ackles.”

That’s unexpected. Denial had been a much more probable course of action. After all, it was a simple gesture. Words, flat and possibly insubstantial. Disparate meanings, interpretations fractured and unsure. But, apparently, Padalecki’s determined to defy any law or rule in existence.

“But I’m not going to do anything about it.”

And there it is. The punch line.

“Why?”

Jensen’s stubborn. His mother always told him that. At seven, when he hid in his big brother’s suitcase after he’d been told he couldn’t go with him to camp. At nine, when he insisted he didn’t need help learning how to ride a bike. At fifteen, when he told her he was gay, and moved out. At seventeen, when he enlisted, and left all his friends behind.

“I can’t do that to you. I won’t. What you need is a teammate, and a leader. Not some complicated shit and a one night stand.”

His brother went to camp without him. Jensen fell off the bike and broke his arm. His mother ticked every box in how not to react. He still loved her. Jensen followed his brother into the Army. His brother died. Jensen’s still moving forward. Maybe he likes banging his head against the proverbial wall.

“Yeah, that’s bullshit.”

For the first time, Padalecki looks startled. It’s like he came with a set speech, only to see it derailed. Jensen takes satisfaction in that. He barrels forward, doesn’t allow reaction time.

“We both know it’d never be just one night.”

Apprehension flickers in Jared’s eyes.

Jensen pauses for only one beat. “I’m way too good a lay for that.”

There’s a moment, suspended, unattached, time crawling in seconds split in thumps of the heart. Then, laughter.

Jensen grins, revels in the sound. He watches the tiny crescents peek out in Padalecki’s cheeks, and tries to fit together pieces. The man, and the soldier. The cold stare and the firm grip on the machine gun. Padalecki’s soft smile under Steve’s daughter’s ministrations – Jensen’s seen the photo with braided hair, neon blue nails, and a pink bow.

Jensen sees the infinite variations. He respects, he trusts to have his back, to follow the man on the front lines.  He marvels at the warmth, the patience he’s seen in the man. For others. Never for himself, always needing to get it right on the first try.

“Glad we clarified that.” Padalecki leans closer, takes advantage of their spot. Tactical knowledge seems to apply even miles away from a decent fight. So close that Jensen can feel the ever so slight hitch in breath, the audible swallow. There’s no point of contact – there’s still some inches between them, but it’s the same, just thinking about huge hands on already scorching skin. It’s harder – they both struggle not to touch.

“But it doesn’t change a thing, Jensen.”

Padalecki can keep telling himself that. Jensen pulls back, holds his hand up in a blissful illusion of surrender. Padalecki almost looks relieved. Except under the surface, warring with the self-imposed storm of emotion, there’s vulnerable. Something Padalecki never is – never shows. It’d have taken much less strength to fall in line. To give in, to take and not look back.

Jensen watches him strip an old Glock on the bed of his truck. Padalecki gives no sign Jensen is still there. His movements are still fluid, still on the mark. But Jensen watches, thinks Padalecki’s come in at two or three seconds over his usual time.

Jensen watches him go, calm strides when Jensen knows he’s boiling under the surface.

Jensen smiles. It’s a start.

~

  
  
Jared’s shots still hit their mark. But it’s instinct more than any conscious thought.  
  
He didn’t know. Had no idea that Jensen’s cheeks were smattered with honey-dusted freckles. That his eyes were that shade of unearthly green. That they crinkle in the corners when he smiles. He’d gotten used to it. Shallow. Easy to stifle, and move on.  
  
Chris’s barbecue had been a momentary lapse of reason. Or, maybe waking up. Jared jumps head first into danger. Physical pain, just an elementary human fault, thread to hang onto. He runs away from a simple truth. He doesn’t know how. To love, to trust in the idea of letting someone in. Never learned to – Jared had been so good, exactly because of it – that wall he built brick by brick, glued together with an acceptance of an impossible ideal, a conviction solidified in disregard of his personal needs.  
  
But Jared wants. And understands that, if Jensen pushes hard enough, his carefully constructed, already unsteady tower of logic and reason will collapse.  
  


~

  
Jared takes a cold shower. A letter, writing neat and level – words he doesn’t want to read – sits on the table. He wants to forget. But it sinks unbidden, seeps into consciousness, dredges up memories, strings of sketches in stark black and white. A quiescent reality, intrinsic and bleak, one he can usually ignore, catches hold.  
  
  


  
_We’re done. Finally. Six weeks, and the last box is out. My parents are already driving me crazy. I should have expected that. But I just wanted to leave. To not be there, you know?_

_Ali loves Grandma’s cookies. And homemade donuts. And cinnamon rolls, and croissants. (Seriously. She’s making me look bad.) But the house smells of vanilla, and cinnamon, sometimes. Ayden wrinkles his nose at that. I think he knows. That we’re not home, that this is not where we’re supposed to be._

_She came to me the other day, asked me why her name isn’t Allison, or Alice, or “something normal like that”. I told her that daddy chose Alika. Why? I don’t know. Not the version without the bullshit. Can’t we go to heaven to ask him that? How do I explain it to her, when I don’t understand? When I’m bitter, when every time I see you, I see the day you told me he wasn’t coming back?_

_You took that away from me. You, the Army … and maybe I shouldn’t think like that. I should take solace in the fact that he died a hero. I should be proud._

_But I’m not. I’m just alone. All I have left is a flag._

_We love you. And I know that the same, it wasn’t ever just about duty for you. Or a promise. Thank you will never seem enough. For years of happy. For drilling some sense into Chad. For Ayden, when I thought nothing would ever be right. For reminding me there’s a future, even if it breaks my heart._

_But I won’t write. Not anymore. I don’t belong. And neither do you, in our lives. We’re good. We’ll be better._

_Take care of yourself. Tell Jensen._

_Give ‘em hell, Sergeant._  


  
  
Alika was a suicide bomber with wide, sky-blue eyes.  
  
Chad didn’t die a hero. He died with his guts in his hands, begging for absolution.  
  
Crimson, thick and crusty – water  _–_   _blood, it’s always blood_ \- drips, slithers in an excruciatingly slow, maddening rhythm down Jared’s hands.  
  


~

  
Jared loved one thing growing up. Music. Vinyls. Scattered on the floor, in stacks – because that’s all he had. An old record player in the corner – his dad’s – a bed, a lamp, and four walls.  
  
There were nights when his father came home only half-drunk. Then he’d lean on the doorframe, he’d start to talk. About how there’s no other song like  _Child in Time,_ about the birds chirping, the bee, buzzing, footsteps, a smack – the genius that is  _Ummagumma,_ about how he wore black when Bonham died.  
  
Jared would listen – would forget anything he’d been doing at the time – because his father looked him in the eye. He cared.  
  
Or so Jared thought.  
  
He didn’t. Not really, not enough. He was seven. His father broke his piggybank. There weren’t enough quarters to get himself drunk. Jared knows, because his father threw them in his face, finished the job by telling Jared how worthless he was.  
  
At ten, Jared was shoving his father in the shower, trying to get him out of his pissed-on pants. Told himself he wasn’t ashamed. It just happened sometimes.  
  
Fourteen. Jared’s grown. But his gangly limbs, his rail-thin frame can’t handle his father’s bigger one – not when he’s trying to get him to bed, when he tries to hold him up. His father falls. Jared breaks his arm.   
  
His mom watches. Takes out another cigarette from the pack.  
  
He tries.  
  
That’s his greatest fault.  
  
Because, in the end, his father was right.  
  
Jared would always fail – would always let people he cared about down.  
  


~

  
Jared’s drunk – not enough, not like his father – just a pleasant buzz, to forget what’s  _good_ and _right._  
  
For all he fooled himself he didn’t care, he can’t close his eyes.  
  
Not without hearing the screams, the pleads – Chad.  
  
Innocent lives.  
  
 _“Alika.”_  
  
 _An empty schoolyard, just her, Jared and Chad. Kane, Aldis and Carlson are still vacating the grounds. Chad is calmly speaking to the girl in his unique mix of Arabic and English._  
  
 _“That’s a beautiful name. Mine’s Chad. These bastards call me Bunny. Wanna know why?”_  
  
 _Chad palms along the vest, tracks the wires with his thumb._  
  
 _She cries._  
  
 _Tears rolling down her chubby cheeks, she gets out, shaky and broken sound - “Why?”_  
  
 _Chad smiles softly, looks her in the eyes. There’s a beep – steady cadence, measure of life._  
  
 _“I was scared of doing something wrong. Petrified. You ever feel like that?”_  
  
 _She nods. Chad ignores it, goes on._  
  
 _“This ain’t scared, sweetheart. You’re a brave little girl. I was shittin’ my pants.”_  
  
 _She laughs._  
  
 _“First week, they tied my shoelaces together, woke me up in the middle of the night, sent me out on patrol like that. Told me it was a mandatory exercise. I hopped around like a freakin’ bunny half a mile till Sarge decided they laughed enough.”_  
  
 _Numbers flash – a countdown. Seconds. Chad gives an imperceptible shake of his head._  
  
 _He can’t._  
  
 _They can’t save her._  
  
 _There’s not enough time._  
  
 _She understands._  
  
 _Jared blinks._  
  
 _She runs._  
  
 _She doesn’t get far. The vest is heavy. But she’s far enough._  
  
 _Too far._  
  
 _She saves them._  
  
 _Sound. Flames. Smoke. Nothing.  Blood._  
  
 _She dies a hero._  
  
Jared doesn’t know why he’s alive.  
  


~

  
Jared doesn’t care. Not tonight.  
  
Jensen shoots Jared a shy, mischievously innocent smile over the pool table, contorting it into a smug grin when Jared misses his shot by a quarter of an inch. But then Jared bends over, stretching his tightest pair of jeans. He strokes the cue slow, calculated movement while he fixes Jensen with his eyes. He cups the white ball after a foul, skims his long fingers over it before rolling it down the table. Jensen curses under his breath.  
  
Jared loses. He’s too busy tracking Jensen’s hands, his arms – muscles rippling when he twists to make a particularly hard shot.  
  
He’s ready to give up.  
  
Jensen’s there, he’s so close, so good, so  _everything_ Jared wants –  
  
He can’t. Jensen has an idea, of who Jared is, and what’s he’s done.  
  
Jared doesn’t know how to tell him he’s wrong.  
  
So he leaves – again – falls asleep with Jensen’s parting smile – soft, warm – in his mind.  
  
  


~

Jared can’t run.  
  
Not today. It’s raining. Not the rain that carries mercy, the rain that washes away the sins. This rain is suffocating, heavy – air too thick to breathe. Smoky clouds seethe, sprinkling beads of ash that simmer on contact.  
  
The sun ran away. Jared wonders where he was when it happened.  
  
The gym is crowded. Cold, and grayer than the rain outside. Sweat and metallic clinks, the whirr of the treadmills, indistinguishable chatter. He hates it, feels trapped, confined to an unmalleable frame of mind. But Jared needs it, needs to be exhausted enough to drift into a dreamless sleep.  
  
He settles for some weights, revels in the dull ache, the burn that spreads with each thrust.  
  
The whole team’s there. They’re athletes, men who walk, run and crawl miles – hundreds of them – saddled with forty pounds in equipment as a warm-up. Oddly, they never slump under the weight of it. They stand taller.  
  
It’s late, and they’re all already tired. Chris spent two hours on the treadmill. Highest setting on it. Aldis has a new bruise on his cheek. Sanshou, free fighting. Steve looks too smug to not be the one who put it there. And Jensen – well, Jensen, Jared doesn’t want to think about. All hard lines, graceful curves and bulging muscle as he pummels the big, heavy bag in front of him. So much power, a single-minded determination that’s too strong to be anything other than what Jared finds in running. Escape.  
  
But it’s tradition. They gather around the mat. It’s quiet. One more soldier gives them a short nod as she exits.  
  
The gym is empty, except for Alpha Team.  
  
Steve and Aldis are first. They smile at each other, shake hands. They pounce. There’s no rules, beyond no serious harm to each other – everything’s allowed. Short bursts, each of them a contender.  
  
Kane cheers on the sidelines. Well, curses and teases – same thing.  
  
Jensen’s right beside Jared, cheeks flushed, breath coming ragged – they lapse into a comfortable silence.  
  
Nothing’s changed. They don’t avoid it - couldn’t, even if they wanted to.  
  
Bullets flying, mines exploding, cars bursting into flames make it hard to be anything other than professional in the field. But off it, on neutral ground – it’s nothing short of psychological warfare.  
  
They tease. They laugh. They pretend that it’s enough.  
  


~

  
  
Jesus fuck. The bastards don’t hold back. Jensen may have underestimated how serious this little tournament was. Hodge certainly didn’t have a problem kicking him in the family jewels. Hard.  
  
Jensen plops onto the edge of the mat, barely missing Steve in the process. He laughs when he sees Jensen wince.  
  
“You okay there, Ackles?”  
  
He scowls.  
  
“Man, there’s nothing sacred anymore in this life.”  
  
Steve laughs harder, slaps his palm against Jensen’s back.  
  
“Hey, all’s fair in love and war.”  
  
Jensen bites back the bitter  _This is neither_ on his tongue.  
  
“How’d all this clever torture start, anyway?”  
  
For a moment, Steve stills, lets the grin fall. He studies Jensen for a moment, searching for a motive, for an agenda he doesn’t have. Steve sighs, turns his gaze towards the mat, where Kane and Padalecki are squaring off. The leader paces, but doesn’t go on the attack. He waits, predatory twinkle in his eyes.  
  
“Things were different when we started. Jared was young – a dumb kid fresh off the block, or so we thought. It didn’t really matter that he had as many years in the service as any of us. He couldn’t go and wave his medals and his Purple Heart around. It didn’t work like that.”  
  
Steve shrugs, tracks Chris’ movement, his double jab and Padalecki’s outside slip.  _Jared._  Jensen ignores the familiarity he rarely allows himself to give in.  
  
“Never made the way he swings a secret, either, so it was easy to find fault. You find it anywhere if you  look hard enough.” A wry smile. “It was some fucked-up shit. We trusted each other in the field, but back home, we didn’t even like each other without a gun in our hands. Man – the crap he took for who he was – young, gay, better soldier than most of us – would have put a lot of people down.”  
  
Steve taps an uneven rhythm with his fingers on his knee, hisses in sympathy when Kane’s back hits the mat.  
  
“Back then, the gym was this mat and a few weights here and there. Jared had just finished, was heading out. Some asshole cut off his path. Started spewing some bullshit. Same shit he’d heard before, but this time he’d had enough. I’ve never seen someone in a choke hold so fast.”  
  
There’s a grunt, then a thud, and Jensen turns just in time to see Padalecki pinned to the ground.  
  
“Kind of escalated from there. Jared only had Chad in his corner, and he didn’t let him fight on his behalf. Everybody threw punches. God help me, I did, too. Jared took all of us up on that, laid most of us flat on our back. There was blood coming out of his mouth, he was more bruise than skin, his ankle was fucked up … it was brutal. But nobody messed with him after that.”  
  
Jensen had seen, had realized what simmered under the surface. The beast, the wild glint in Jared’s eyes sometimes.  
  
“We sort of made a habit out of kicking the shit out of each other for fun.” Steve snickers, points to the mat. “As you can see. Sort of a joke. Training together, we said. Weird thing was, we bonded. Not cry-and-talk-about-our-feelings bonded, but understood more about each other as people. Humans. The scope we use on our rifle stopped being the only thing we knew about each other.”  
  
Steve turns to face Jensen, his expression hard, closed off.  
  
“That satisfy your curiosity, Ackles?”  
  
It’s not really dismissive, but it’s close enough for Jensen to know when to shut up.  
  
“Didn’t mean to pry, man. Just – since I’ve been here, Padalecki always seemed like the kind of guy you follow to hell and back.”  
  
Padalecki’s muttered curses reverberate across the gym, mingle with Steve’s dry laugh.  
  
“Yeah, well, you took a hell of a lot less time figuring that out than the rest of us.”  
  


~

  
Padalecki wins, in the end.  
  
He fights like he does everything else – with all he’s got. Truth is, they all have shitty lives as background in their records. But Padalecki – it’s like he doesn’t know anything else, can’t be something other than that. Jensen knows, this job, you either bring  _home_  with you, or you don’t have one to miss – but  _Jared_  – Jared’s home is on the mission. He comes alive, he goes from man, from fallible human to an invincible force, to strength and reckless courage measured in bullets and bombs.  
  
Or so it seems, at least.  
  
Padalecki clamps a massive paw down his shoulder, breaks him out of his reverie.  
  
“So, how’d you like our knitting circle, Ackles?”  
  
Jensen offers up a smirk to match Jared’s.  
  
“It was good.” A brief pause. “Except all you ladies fought like you just got your nails painted.”  
  
Padalecki has the decency to look affronted. Then he speaks, low, almost a whisper. It sends chills racing down Jensen’s spine.  
  
“Why, Ackles, I think you’re just looking to get your ass kicked.” Jared leans forward, closer, until Jensen can feel the hot puff of his breath on his cheek. “Again.”  
  
Jensen gets up, takes a place in the middle of the mat. He doesn’t need to fake the self-assurance.  
  
“So you think you can take me?”  
  
 Padalecki ponders a moment, cocks his head to the side. Slowly, the corners of his mouth tilt upwards. Chris chooses that moment to interrupt.  
  
“You coming, boss?” He switches to Jensen. “Blondie?”  
  
Jared’s gaze stays fixed on Jensen as he answers.  
  
“You go ahead, Kane. Me and Ackles have some issues to work out.”  
  
Kane snickers.  
  
“Right, right.” He turns to leave. “Just remember … no glove, no love, Sarge.”  
  
He gets a sweaty towel in his face for an answer. It doesn’t stop the cackle.  
  
They’re alone.  
  
Pacing. Hands up, gazes locked. Pretty decent footwork, too.  
  
Surprisingly, Padalecki throws the first punch. A sloppy jab. Jensen slips outward, counters with a leg to the gut. He doesn’t hit, just touches lightly.  _I could, if I wanted._  
  
A few minutes later, and they’re soaked in sweat, clothes stuck disgustingly to the skin, strands of hair plastered all over their foreheads. But their eyes are burning, unspoken truths flickering in hues of whiskey and stormy green, in brows furrowed in concentration.  
  
Jensen twists, tries a roundhouse kick. Jared’s knee goes up, blocks it.  
  
It’s teasing, and Jensen feels the need to fill the silence. Up the ante, take the risk.  
  
“I’m thinking, I win, I get to ask a question.”  
  
Padalecki doesn’t miss a beat, tracks Jensen as he circles with an almost evil grin.  
  
“Low stakes, Ackles.”  
  
Jared’s leg swings, extended, going for a front kick. Jensen’s hand meets it, throws it sideways and wide.  
  
“But fine. And if I win?”  
  
Jensen thinks it over for a second.  
  
“You get to kiss me.”  
  
Padalecki falters for the briefest moment.  
  
“Pretty sure of yourself there, Ackles.”  
  
Padalecki slams forward, hand flying in a right hook aimed at Jensen’s face.  
  
Jensen sees it, meets it halfway with the back of his forearm held stiff. Jensen’s free arm goes around Jared’s neck, wraps, and tugs Jared down as he kicks Jared’s feet from under him.  
  
Padalecki hits the mat with his right arm still extended, palm spread as Jensen holds his wrist.  
  
Jared taps lightly, and Jensen pulls him up.  
  
“You know I could have finished there,  _Jared_.”  
  
 _Come on. Fight me, God damn it. For me._  
  
He lets his anger fuel a jab, and Jared escapes it, barrels forward into Jensen, and they go down in a tangle of limbs. Jensen takes his chance. He needs Jared to show it – to let go. To not be the only one.  
  
Jensen shoves upwards on the mat, sliding easily on his sweat-soaked t-shirt. He brings his right knee up, wraps his left leg around Jared’s neck, and locks his ankles in a hold, a tight triangle he secures with his left hand, and his body’s stiff, taut with tension –  _this is it._  
  
Jared’s fingers are splayed on his chest, curling in Jensen’s t-shirt, grasping, seeking hold, nails almost grazing skin. Jared’s eyes press shut with a slight flutter.  
  
 _Defeat._  
  
And somehow, not. A swift motion, Jared’s body driving forward, Jensen’s free hand pinned by the wrist in a blistering grip. Jared’s knee comes up to Jensen’s hip, an anchor as he falls, arches backwards and breaks free.  
  
Jensen needs a moment, to snap back, to process the change, the shift that seems to tilt the world on its axis. To adjust, from the acceptance of Jared not pushing back to  _this,_ to Jared going all in, without a limit, without a thought of what it could mean.  
  
It takes a second. Too much. Jared’s straddling him, pressing, touching, bearing down. Jensen’s hands are pinned above his head, wrists squeezed in a vicious grip.  
  
Jensen doesn’t even feel it.  
  
All he can see is Jared. Hair damp, messy and ruffled. Harsh pants, chest heaving, each rise and fall shaky, too fast, too much. Eyes almost liquid, blazing, barely contained. Jared’s voice comes out scratchy, a gritty whisper.  
  
“You win.”


	6. Part Four

**[Day 1]**

 

They go home together to Jared’s place.

Jared takes the first shower. He stinks. Or so Jensen is telling him around a nervous laugh. In truth, Jensen’s giving Jared time. To be sure, to think it out. They both know the risks. Joke is, he doesn’t need it. It was never a question of what he wanted. Just what he allowed himself to do.

Today – tonight – he gave it all up. The insecurity, the pretense. The glass house that threatened to crumble under the weight of divergent lines of thought. The brink of madness, a ledge built out of sand – chaos splintered, torn apart by the same two halves.

Jensen’s turn under the water. Jared fidgets. Sits down, taps the balls of his feet on the floor in a mindless rhythm. Gets up. The pitter-patter on the tiles in the bathroom is unbearably loud in the silence. He opens a few drawers, takes out boxers, a pair of sweat pants, and a t-shirt. All mechanical motion, heedless of any conscious thought. He places them on the bed, folded and neat. For Jensen.

Socks. He forgot. His body comes to a full stop, frozen, until his brain catches up. Laughter bubbles out of his throat, hysterical and unbidden.

Fuck that. He doesn’t kick the bathroom door down. But he would have, if it was locked.

He doesn’t even think about it. He sinks to his knees in front of Jensen, hears a strangled gasp. Jared takes in the miles of pale skin, of hard muscle and freckles.  _Freckles._ Jared wants to lick – touch, trace, feel – each one. Jensen’s cock in front of him is huge, and already half-hard.

Jared takes it all in, spreading his palms just over the jut of Jensen’s hip, sliding his fingers through the leftover foam of the soap, twirling, pressing, tracing invisible lines. He looks up, and Jensen’s emerald eyes are searching and pleading all at the same time – shining with want, with  _yes_  and _now_  – and darkening, asking if it’s alright.

Jared appreciates it. He really does. But he left behind the doubt.

He presses a soft kiss just under Jensen’s navel, above the curls that tickle his chin. He trails downwards, grazing his teeth along the sensitive flesh, nipping, then licking soothing stripes. A slight shiver, timed with a sharp intake of breath, and Jensen’s bracing his hand on the slippery wall, widening his stance – giving in.

He looks up at Jensen, smiles – just a small tilt of his lips. A promise, a reassurance. 

He takes Jensen’s cock in his hand, his grip firm as his palm slides, wet and slick. Jared squeezes, twists a little on the down stroke, and he’s rewarded with a breathy moan, Jensen’s plush lips parted, eyes locked on the smooth glide of Jared’s huge hand.

Jared runs a thumb over the slit, teasing, groaning when Jensen’s dick twitches, now fully hard, swollen and flushed crimson. His tongue flicks out, follows his thumb in rough swipes. Jared inches closer, letting precome drip on his lips, licks the salty taste after. He loves it – it just fuels that hunger deep inside, the need – and Jared lets Jensen feed him his dick – huge, hot and heavy – inch by deliciously hard inch.

He swallows around it, his throat burning, lips stretched obscenely around the thick length, and Jensen’s hips buck forward, nudging impossibly deep, and Jared’s choking, his mouth so full he can’t breathe, and he must have lost his survival instinct somewhere, because all he can do is whimper, let out a needy moan and beg. Beg for more, for Jensen to take it –  _him_ – and on some level, Jensen must have figured out what the broken sounds mean, because he fists his free hand in Jared’s hair, pulling, a blistering grip.

But it’s pleasure – Jensen’s low growl, possession – as Jensen thrusts, first shallow, then deep, control shattered, just overwhelming need – and Jared opens wider, flattens his tongue, hollows his cheeks. His own dick is throbbing, neglected in his boxers. Jared brings a hand to it, pulls it free, strips it hard, fast, in time with Jensen’s rhythm, and he’s trembling, a full-body shiver that makes him feel like he’s made of thin glass, like every touch, every pull and twist might break him, might bring his collapse.

His jaw hurts, his knees are slipping on the wet shower stall, and Jensen just slams, fucks his mouth like it’s all that’s keeping him alive, frayed edges of sanity scattering, lost in the flutter of Jared’s throat, the tight, wet heat he’s trapped in – faster, harder, until Jensen’s whole body stiffens, muscles ripple under touch, and he’s coming, exploding – and Jared swallows all he can. But it’s too much, and it’s dribbling past his numb lips, down his chin – Jensen looks down, all lust-blown pupils and flushed cheeks, and in the next moment, he’s hauling Jared up by his shoulders, kissing his puffy, come-shiny lips, rough, sinking his teeth in the lower one and pulling – and Jared still has a hand on his own cock, and he tugs, wills himself to   _just breathe_  – but he can’t, not when Jensen presses himself closer, when Jared’s knees feel weak.

Jensen’s hand slides down, trails a discontinuous line over his chest and stomach, and then his hand is covering Jared’s, and Jared needs to fight to get enough air into his lungs, because the sensation’s too good, too much, not enough. Jensen releases his mouth long enough to mutter in his ear, voice sandpaper-rough, cracked in places and forced between stuttered breaths.

Jared’s name, something, it doesn’t matter – just the hoarse texture, scratchy low register blanketing him – it’s all it takes – it sends him over the edge, falling, endlessly falling, white dancing behind his closed eyelids, heart pounding, jolt after jolt ripping through him, tearing him apart.

“Padalecki?”

There’s a muffled noise, faint and noncommittal.

“Hmm?”

 “Are we sleeping in the shower?”

Jared blinks his eyes open. Jensen’s staring at him, slightest hint of amusement in his expression. Large hands are gripping Jared’s biceps tight, fingernails digging in. Jared’s grateful. He doesn’t think he could stand up otherwise.

Jared speaks, but it’s an octave lower, a coarse whisper that gets lost in the sound of the water flowing, soothing, peaceful spatter trickling down the skin.

“I was thinking round two, actually.”

Jensen groans, presses his fingers deeper, almost breaking skin.

“ _Fuck_. Alright – just. Bed this time.” He pauses. “Give me five minutes.”

Jared smirks, bends over to reach for a towel. “Weak, Ackles. Age takin’ its toll, huh?”

Jensen takes a moment to answer, and when Jared looks back up, Jensen’s eyes are glazed over, rooted to Jared’s cock. Jared laughs, pets Jensen consolingly on the shoulder. He’s messing with him. He knows he interrupted Jensen in the middle of his shower – his hair still has shampoo in it. Jared makes a move to leave, but Jensen jerks him back, throws him against the cold tile, and shoves his leg between Jared’s.

Jared can feel the hard line of Jensen’s dick – seriously, give the man a medal for recovery time - against his thigh. He swallows.

“Oh, that’s not a problem.  _At all_ , Padalecki.” Jensen punctuates the sentence with a small roll of his hips. “I’m dying to spread you wide open. I’m going to take my time, finger you open until you’re begging me to fuck you.” Jensen traces the curve of Jared’s jaw with his teeth. “Then I’m going to slide in, so –”  _thrust_   “excruciatingly”  _thrust_  “slow, you’re gonna scream.”  _Jesus fuck._ Jared’s brain goes offline for a moment. “Maybe have you ride my dick. Or fuck you on your hands and knees. I bet you’d like that. Take it so good – you’re already hard just thinking about it.”

Jared didn’t think it was possible, but he is. Pounding nails, diamond-cutting, blindingly hard. That’s why it physically hurts when Jensen ushers him towards the door.  _Again._

“So be a good boy and wait for me in the bedroom.”

Jared even gets a swat on his ass. Jensen’s grin is ridiculously smug.

“Ackles?”

Jensen hums out some unintelligible sound. Jared decides it’s time to fight back.

“One minute, and I’m starting without you.”

He closes the door to Jensen’s muttered curses and the sound of the shampoo bottle hitting the ground.

 

**[Day 33]**

 

Jensen’s adjusting. He is. The back-and-forth, the nights and the mornings after.

It’s nice. Everything falls into place. It’s easy. Comfortable. They learned, unwittingly, when to push – they figured out, inadvertently, when to hold back. What they need, an understanding that could come only with the same insecurities, same doubts – same nightmares, same days to get through and forget about.

And then there’s Jared, and a side of him that Jensen discovers he quite likes. Jared, who strides into the kitchen buck naked and, after making sure Jensen isn’t going to choke on the bacon strip he’s chewing, casually picks up his coffee mug. Then turns and reaches for the cereal in the top cupboard.

Jared doesn’t even eat cereal.

But it provides an excellent view of his ass. And his thighs. Where lube is slowly dripping down.  Jensen isn’t sure what to do first – close the blinds on the windows or bend Jared over and fuck him into next week.

He goes for the second option.

That’s how they end up splayed on the cold kitchen floor in a messy tangle of limbs, panting, breath coming in shaky sounds – little more than boneless heaps.

Jared smiles, slow and satisfied, cheeks flushed from the exertion, from where’s he’s resting his head on Jensen’s midriff.

Jensen decides he likes Jared’s way of saying good morning. A lot. Minus the neighbors having a courtside seat.

It’s comfortable. The cupboards make for a pretty good backrest. And the two of them are good on the body heat.

Jensen trails his fingers over Jared’s skin, traces all the curves and dips. The miles of smooth, lean muscle – imperfect, scars littered across – but all  _his_.

There’s a thin line marring Jared’s hip, coming all the way up to his ribcage. Jensen runs his thumb over it – startles a little when Jared speaks.

“Borrowed a Desert Eagle from Mossad’s finest. He got a little pissed.”

Jared’s eyes are pressed shut. But there’s the default smug grin – so Jensen chuckles.

“You got one, too, Ackles. On your back. Spill. ”

Jensen takes a moment to appreciate just how much they suck at pillow talk.

“Landmine.”

Jared’s eyes fly open.

“Shit.”

“Pretty much. Rookie panicked, stepped off it. I was right in front of him, trying to get him to calm down. Next thing I know I’m on my stomach, and it’s raining pieces of him.”

Jared doesn’t say anything. As depressing as it sounds, they’re used to it.

Jensen reaches up – well, down in their inversed T position – and sweeps a stray strand of light brown hair behind Jared’s ear. There, just at the base of the scalp, there’s another small scar – faded, almost unnoticeable.

“This?”

Jared’s tone is devoid of any emotion when he answers. Numb.

“My old man sent me flying headfirst into a door.”

Jensen sucks in a sharp breath. He keeps his touch gentle, brushes his knuckles against Jared’s cheekbone.

“He was a drunk. I was stupid enough to get between him and the bottle.” Jared shrugs, stares sightlessly at the ceiling. “It was a long time ago, Jensen. I’ve left him in the past.”

Jensen stays silent. He spreads his palm on Jared’s chest, feels the answering shiver. Jared’s eyes flutter closed.

The phone rings.  

 

**[Day 71]**

 

It’s all metal. Grey, dull – impersonal. Colors their frame of mind, an alloy of carbon and iron all around. Warmth resides only in an old chalkboard, muddy green, littered with diagrams and combat sequence run-throughs.

Their classroom – where the team gets briefed on their missions.

Colonel Morgan leans against the desk in the front, and patches of dark green and khaki follow the motion –fatigues glued to his skin. His voice is a steady cadence, rasp and growl while he barks the new orders.

Recover an inactive nuclear warhead misplaced from the US stockpile. In terms of bad days, Jared thinks the guy who lost a weapon of mass destruction takes the cake. And the cherry on top.

Truth is, he’s not too happy about this mission.

 _Nuclear_  means dismissal of human life – hostages are demoted in the hierarchy of importance. Neutralizing becomes the focus. And Jared hates that. He doesn’t have any illusions of saving each and every person – but  _nuclear_ , operational or not, tends to make the body count go way up.

Jared listens, already forms the outlines of a plan in his head.

The Colonel’s done after a few minutes. He gives a sharp nod – formal salute forgotten somewhere along the blurred lines of friendship and camaraderie – and the team heads for the exit.

 _“Padalecki”_ , muttered in that gruff tone, and Jared stops dead in his tracks.

He turns, fixes the Colonel’s dark brown eyes, and stands at attention.

“Sir?”

Jared knows what this is about. But he’s waiting.

“I assume, Padalecki, since it’s been almost eight goddamn years since you entered this dog and pony show – that you’re aware of the security cameras covering every inch of this base.”

He’s waiting for an accusation.

“I am, sir.”

“Then I can only deduce that your little displays of affection towards another member of your team are intentionally careless, and meant for everyone’s eyes.”

Jared clenches his jaw, presses his palms tighter behind his back.

“You a mute now, Padalecki?” Morgan’s tone doesn’t increase in volume. It’s just deeper, richer, resonating in the small room. “Talk.”

“What do you want me to say, sir? I’m not sorry. We’re together. I’m not going to hide that.” Jared relaxes, schools his features into an impassive mask. “And with all due respect, there’s never been any interference on a mission. We keep it home.”

Morgan huffs, sound between impatient and irritated.

“This ain’t about that, you moron. I’d have pulled you out of the field faster than green grass through a goose if you couldn’t keep it in your pants on assignment. “ The colonel comes closer, gets in Jared’s space – and Jared can’t help but stand taller, keep his gaze on an immovable point in front of him. “You know the regs. What you two are doing breaks all the rules.” The Colonel doesn’t touch him. But Jared can feel his eyes roaming over him. “Long as you do your job and your team’s good with it, I couldn’t give a flying fuck where you put your dick. But Ackles is a hell of a soldier, and if you fuck up, sorry ain’t gonna cut it. You aware of  _that_ , Padalecki?”

Jared’s always bordered on insubordination. He’s the guy who rarely does what he’s told – he likes to follow his own compass, moral and otherwise. But there was never someone like Jensen before in his life. So he shuts up.

“I am, sir. “

Morgan nods, apparently satisfied. “This ain’t a joke, Sergeant. Watch your step. As for me, if I ain’t got nothing to see, I ain’t got nothing to report. Understand? ”

“Yessir.”

“Good.” A smirk creeps up on his face. ”God only knows why he puts up with you, Padalecki.”

Jared’s just about to open his mouth when Morgan cuts him off, hand raised, finger pointed at him in admonishment.

“Don’t even think about it, Padalecki. Went forty seven years without hearing about another man’s dick. I’d rather it stayed that way.”

Damn it.

Jared settles for a defiant smile. He’s dismissed.

Outside, waiting in the hallway, he finds Jensen. Jared moves towards him, sneaks a hand around his shoulder – the hallway’s empty, the camera’s facing the other way – and kisses his temple.

“Come on, Ackles, let’s snatch us a warhead.”

Jensen melts against him, circles his arm around Jared’s waist. But he’s still wary, and his next word holds tension.

“Morgan?”

Jared puts on his most thoughtful expression.

“He gave us his blessing. Well, not in so many words. He means well. I think. Said to watch out for the eyes in the sky.” He chuckles, pulls away and points to a security camera at the approaching hallway junction.

Jensen’s only answer is a groan.

Jared laughs. Genuine, like it hasn’t been in a long time.

 

 

**[Day 105]**

 

They made it back.

Physically.

But they’re still fighting.

Well, there’s no angry screams, no door slamming or punches thrown.

It’s worse.

Just static.

Jared spends the nights wondering when had the right side of the bed had become Jensen’s in his mind. He thinks back. To words said, to days and nights stringing together in what is, probably, the happiest time in his life.

He didn’t know.  _Happy_ was never truly an option. Somewhere along, Jared had settled for taking the hits as they came – gave in to a short-lived madness and its downfall. The closer he’d come to death, the more alive he’d feel. He didn’t chase it – didn’t want to die.

 But he was okay with it – an old friend, a greeting.

He found comfort in a purpose.

And right until he met Jensen, he was clear on what it was.

Now missions are hard.

Harder than they used to be. For Jared, it was always instinct. Decisions, and an acceptance of consequences that bore the weight of the sky.

 _Now -_ getting the job done is not Jared’s first thought. Not when they clear a room, and Jensen goes down. Not when they’re forced apart – when things go bad, and they have to make it back on different routes. It’s Jensen. Everything else fades into the background.

But Jared still goes through the same motions. Still acts like Jensen’s just like any other soldier under his command – Jensen down means just an adjustment in the tactical plan. He has to reconcile the idea of Jensen not coming back with a real chance.

It’s a house of cards, a conviction in layers of self-hatred – and Jared doesn’t know if it’ll ever stop feeling like he’s ripped in half.

 So he holds back, fades to a bystander in the volatile collision Jensen and him engage in.

Jensen tries. He really does. He asks, he listens, he’s there all along. But Jared’s confused, and angry, and simply doesn’t understand. He sees only one option, an extreme that hurts just as much.

But he can’t do it. It’s an indistinct moment, inessential and unanchored in time.

_I’m sorry._

A text message to Jensen, a weak attempt on Jared’s part at fixing what he broke with his own hands.

Minutes or hours later – time is fluid when it’s measured in cigarette packs – Jared hears the door slide unlocked. Their brand of intimate – no need for a key when you know how to pick the lock.

Jensen stays the night. They don’t talk. Days went without each other. They touch.

It’s enough.

 

**[Day 143]**

 

It’s one of those nights.

The nights that swallow everything whole, when darkness is liquid, when it sticks to the skin. When absence of light distorts into worthless hours, into a senseless expanse. When Jensen wakes up alone. When he finds Jared on the couch, unlit cigarette in his hand, staring at nothing.

Jensen slides onto the floor, lets his back hit the bottom of the couch. He touches Jared’s knee. Jared’s free hand rests limply on the cushion. He meets Jensen’s eyes, like he knew Jensen was there all along, like he hadn’t gotten lost in distant times.

Jensen shifts himself closer, and Jared’s fingers card through his hair, gently, feathery-light touch. They come to rest at the nape of his neck, squeezing. Grounding himself. Jensen waits, lets the weak rays of the hallway light filter, glance off old scars, unhurried and fragile.

“Nightmare?”

Jared shakes his head, purses his lips in a thin line. A pause, and Jared remembers, comes back to himself. He puts the cigarette down.

Memories.

Jensen can’t fix it. He knows his own demons, their own mocking laughter.

They stay there, inert, inanimate figures in the dimness. The only movement is the constant stumble of the minute hand across the first hours of midnight. A scream, dissolved into dissonant seconds of silence.

“I’m afraid.”

It’s soft, barely audible when Jared talks.

“I shouldn’t be, right? Toughest motherfucker on this side of world.” A few beats, and a dark chuckle makes its way out of Jared’s throat. “But I am. I’m so fucking afraid of who I am, of who I’m becoming. That I don’t flinch when I pull the trigger. That I can justify it. That it doesn’t seem _wrong._ And what if one day, you’ll realize? You’ll see, and these nights will be all I have?” Jared takes a shaky breath, steels himself, grips Jensen, the couch, like all he wants to do is run, but he can’t. “God, Jensen…I – I’m all in. This. The job. Us. I just don’t know – what do I do? What happens if I lose you? If I can’t do it right? If I screw up?”

Jensen doesn’t really know how to answer that. He could be blown into a million pieces tomorrow. Or shot, or beaten to death. It’s their job description. They sign an up-to-date stamp on their wills before every mission. And Jared  _will_  screw up. But so will Jensen.

So Jensen talks. At first, just to fracture the stillness.

“My father killed himself when I was three.”

He hears Jared’s sharp intake of breath, feels the hand he has on Jensen’s neck stiffen. But it stays there. Calming, anchor in  _here._

“No money, no job, two kids – I don’t know. I never asked for an explanation. He left me and my brother with mom.” Jensen sighs, picks at a loose thread in the knee of Jared’s pants. “Mom – she was a nurse. She was damn good at it. But after dad, she blamed herself. She – faded. She wasn’t really there most of the time. She had some odd days when she was so happy, it was like she held the sun in her hands. You just wanted to curl by her side and soak it up.”

Jared’s fingers scatter, trace a pattern over his scalp.

“I remember, she’d hum and dance around in the kitchen with a spoon in her hand. Two kids in the audience, and we just ate our toast and clapped.” Jensen shrugs, but it’s a dismissive motion. “Those days were few and far between. Sometimes she talked. But she told the same stories, lost track of ours. Her laugh sounded more like nails on a chalkboard.  My older brother, Jeff – he took my dad’s place in the house, taking care of me and helping mom. He was ten when he took his first job. Mopping floors after hours at some grocery store down the block.” Jensen’s hollow laugh scratches the thick silence.  “Man, they had a bucket that was two times bigger than him.”

Jensen stops, looks up into Jared’s eyes. There’s a softness there. Wrapped in hard, in rough edges.

“He joined the Army at seventeen. I had a hard time dealing with it. He was the one that read me _Goodnight Moon_ , the one who tucked me in at night. Jeff gave me all the presents I remember. I was about seven when he brought me home some crayons – all different colors. I was so fucking excited. He spent the evenings, after dinner, showing me how to draw – a house. Dinosaurs. Cars. Kid stuff. I wasn’t particularly good, but it passed the time. And once in a while, he’d pin one of my sketches on the fridge. I never felt more proud than that. Not even when I got my medals.”

Jensen doesn’t know why he’s telling Jared. It’s a past he’s buried, rarely thought about. Maybe because it’s not perfect. Nothing is. It’s what they make of it. And he needs Jared to see that.

“My teenage years were fucked up. I kind of hated everyone. Especially Jeff. I’d thought he’d left me behind. And then my mom threw me out. Lamest fucking cliché. I always knew I was gay – wasn’t some hallelujah moment when I saw the light. But those days – she took everything like it was her fault. A disease, she called it – like she fucked me up somehow. ”

The thread Jensen is playing with rips, leaves a tiny little hole for Jared’s skin to show through.

“The first year I could, I enlisted. The Army meant my brother, and my brother meant good. By then – I needed good in my life.  But it wasn’t anything like I dreamt of. I spent my first and second tour alone, so fuckin’ scared half the time, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. But I thought about Jeff, and what he’d have to say about that. I poured everything I had into being a good soldier. A good fighting man.”

He spreads his palm over Jared’s knee, warmth and comfort in the touch.

“I’d wake up in the middle of the night, sweaty, cold, not knowing which way was up. Then Jeff died. His Humvee was blown to bits by mortar fire. He didn’t stand a chance. God, the nightmares – his face, his smile, his voice, the times when I was little, when he’d hold me, tell me it was going to be alright – I’d hear, I’d see, I’d feel them all. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t fucking breathe right– it felt like someone had ripped out a part of me, like alone is all I would ever feel, like everybody left me, like they didn’t care enough.“ Jensen takes a deep breath, smiles. Twisted, sad – the crinkles in the corners seem to tally every sleepless night. “So I picked up a marker. I drew, like he had taught me. Faces, people, places – everything I could remember clear enough. Shadows. I didn’t sleep better. But I had something. Something to hold onto. I tried.”

Jensen watches, mesmerized by Jared’s eyes shifting color – simmering in a sea of green.

“What I’m saying is, let’s do  _now_. And then  _now_ can be  _later_.  _Now_  becomes ten years from this. Twenty. We’re old, we have arthritis, and it takes us a minute to strip a gun. Or maybe we die. We screw this up. Who the fuck cares, Jared? We fight for it. We give everything we have. That’s the only way, and I know you understand that, because I know who you are.“

Jensen can’t look away – Jared’s lost, taking it all in, watching Jensen like he’s going to make everything right, like he can fix a past that shaped only uncertainties and doubts, and Jensen would do it, for Jared, but he can’t, doesn’t want to change things that made him who he is now.

He waits. Wonders if Jared understands.

There’s a warm hand above his on Jared’s knee. Linking their fingers together, locking them tight. It’s Jared. Maybe it’ll always be him.

Twin dimples peek shyly between faint stubble. Subdued, like they couldn’t really decide on a smile.

“Man … here I thought we were just two idiots sitting in the dark.”


	7. Part Five

  
Somewhere along the way,  _home_ shifted, from a point bound to earth, to a feeling, a familiar warmth. A beer, a quiet afternoon at Steve’s house. Where they can be themselves – just the team, family thicker than blood.

“You kissed him.” Jensen sighs. “Ex-KGB, has a gun about to rearrange your intestines, and you kiss him. On the nose.” He looks almost resigned. “Why am I not surprised?”

Jared shrugs.

“Hey, it was a valid move. Fucker was so surprised, he didn’t need any help hugging the floor afterwards.”

Chris chimes in, snickering around a mouthful of pretzels.

“True that. Boss probably tickled his moustache wrong.”

Jensen studies Jared for a brief moment – takes in the dimpled smirk. His hair, freshly washed, strands working as antennae for extraterrestrial life – also, the ponytail on the missions – good call. The  _Led bloody Zeppelin, that’s who_ white t-shirt that’s now a little too tight on him. Jared has declared war on Jensen’s washing machine.

“One of these days, you’re going to do something truly crazy, aren’t you?”

It’s a joke. Or it was meant to be. Jensen’s smile is there. Bright, easy and sunny like a Sunday afternoon. It dissolves. A change in tone – Jared’s eyes, slowly meeting his, grin falling apart – he understands. Jensen has no idea how – he’s just now figuring it out.  Jared speaks, but his gaze never leaves Jensen’s.

“At least I didn’t parade around with a Glock stuffed in my pants, asking people if they wanted to see my gun.”

Hodge smirks.

“Russian vodka, man.”

They laugh.

Jared tugs Jensen towards him, and he lands in Jared’s lap – which is definitely more comfortable than the arm of the couch. Jared sneaks a finger under Jensen’s chin, tilts his head up. It’s a collision – hazel, and pure green. Words that need to be said, hanging somewhere above. He cups Jensen’s jaw with his right hand – and Jensen can feel the blister in the web of his thumb. Jared has overdone it. What’s usually just calloused skin, rough and irregular – telltale sign of the firing hand – is now angry red, rubbed raw.

The range. Memories that seem so far. He leans in, presses his lips to Jared’s – and it takes less than a second to go from soft and gentle to harsh, to desperate, hungry and not enough. Like everything between them.

Someone clears their throat. They part.

Jared’s left hand stays on the small of Jensen’s back.

~

  
They’re given a new mission. Wheels up in an hour. Kane seems entirely too happy.  
  
“Boss, you’re waddling.”  
  
The sound of the locker door slamming shut echoes in the silence. Jared turns, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched.  
  
“Kane, I’m going to ask you a question. I’m gonna ask you what you just said, and by God, if your answer doesn’t end with a  _sir_ , I’m gonna wipe that stupid smile off your face with the butt of my gun. “  
  
Chris holds out a full ten seconds – heroically – before breaking into laughter. Jared’s just about to make good on his promise when he feels a hand on his shoulder, holding him back.  
  
Chris takes off. Giggling. There’s a muffled  _he said butt_ in there somewhere, and Jared resists the urge to bang his head against the wall.  
  
Jensen snorts. Jared glares at him.  
  
“What? ’S your fault. You broke me last night. You and the fucking baseball bat you pack in your pants.”  
  
Jensen laughs harder.  
  
“No respect. I get no fucking respect around here,” Jared growls when Jensen pats him consolingly on the shoulder. “Bastards.”  
  
Jensen trails his thumb over Jared’s cheekbone, looks up with wonder in his eyes. Jared’s gearing up for a Hallmark moment. Or at least a quick fuck.  
  
“Aw, Marshmallow. Don’t pout.”  
  
 Jared groans, and wonders when had his team turned into the kindergarten class.  
  


~

  
It’s Afghanistan this time.  
  
Talibans apparently didn’t get the peace memo, and decided wiping out a convoy and kidnapping the surviving corporal and two privates first class would be a nice  _fuck you_ ,  _America_.  
  
A supply run, and chaos. There’s a video. Dust, covered in blood. But no demands. No mercy. Just because they can, a blind hatred, an enemy without face, without name or rank. Just bodies left behind.  
  
Alpha team is focused on the living.  
  
They catch a ride on a C-130 full of Marines. Twenty five thousand feet above a desert none of them is too keen on seeing again, they unclip the static line of their parachutes from the steel cable overhead, and they jump.  
  
Jensen always loves it.  
  
Silence. The wind whipping past, the fitful stirring of the huge iron bird – a free fall. Body locked tight, eyes open wide – flying, defying the most elementary of laws as the canopy spreads behind with a muted flutter, a faint sound.  
  
The drop zone’s a plateau, sand-covered, barren of any vegetation besides a few shriveled shrubs. Inconsistent, small hills littered across, sketching a rocky terrain, rendered in the red-brown of clay, elongated strokes of gravel shifting, wind a constant presence, cold and dry.  
  
He hits the ground, knees bent, the impact rough, but fluid – he rolls, movement rehearsed, smooth as he unhooks his harness and gets up. There’s motion beside him, thirty, a hundred feet away – their formation dispersed, tiny points in a sea of coppery sand, islands of olive drab that ripple slightly with the wind.  
  


~

  
A cadence.  
  
They’re alone. Miles of nothing before them – just sky and sun – all blurring in indistinguishable patches, without an end, without a start; Jared’s voice, steady, deep, and hoarse as he croaks out the lines that scatter in the hot air, dissolve into a resolution, a state of mind.  
  
A few more hours until the nearest point of civilization – a price they paid for deniability, for the shadows they are.  
  
The information’s vague. Enemies of Islam, captured, tortured, killed, never to be found.  
  
Jared’s voice isn’t loud. But it resonates, finds a slow tempo echoed in five hearts.  
  
 _If I die on the ol’ drop zone, box me up and send me home_  
  
 _Pin my medals upon my chest, tell my momma I did my best._  
  
It’s quiet. They’re close. A road, the same fine powder between sand and dust, a sign  _–_  “ _Beware of the landmines” –_ in the distance _,_ a tank, turned over, more holes than rust – probably playground for kids using unloaded Kalashnikovs as toy guns.  
  
It’s a picture fragmented by war, forgotten in death, and painted in blood.  
  
They move on, tighter grip on the rifles in their hands.  
  


~

  
 “Shit.”  
  
And that about sums it up.  
  
Drag marks, a dead body and the burnt-out chassis of a Humvee, monument in the middle of the narrow, gravel-covered street.  
  
That’s all they have to go on. Locals aren’t particularly welcoming. They’re afraid – or they simply learned – getting involved can yield no good results.  
  
The clock’s ticking. And they have no plan.  
  
They regroup, find an abandoned house. The walls are crumbling – remnants of another war. Bullet holes form a pattern in the mud bricks – there’s no glass in the window – just a thin, almost transparent bed sheet.  
  
They eat, indulge in a few hours of field sleep. Guard duty in shifts, but no real rest – startling awake at the slightest sound, mind over body – training, just as they’ve been taught to slow their heart rates, to shoot between heartbeats.  
  
They check in with home base, learn of a new contact on the ground. A local reporter tracking the activity of the insurgent group may have stumbled over a few leads.  
  
Dawn brings a meeting with him.  
  
The man, short and heavy, keeps running his fingers through his beard, over his mouth. He’s spooked.  
  
His hands tremble on the tea cup, and the small apartment reeks – a sickening combination of spinach, onion and eggs – but he manages to stammer out, half broken English, half hurried Pashto – some information about a couple of trucks leaving the scene shortly after the soldiers were kidnapped.  
  
He’s about to reach for his notepad, put a little order in his disorganized thoughts, when a shot rings out. The glass on the window shatters, the man sways a little, and drops to the floor with a thud.  
  
Jared curses – he always does when something goes wrong – and in seconds, they’re firing back. Jensen crouches near the other window, Jared and Chris flatten themselves to the wall. Steve and Aldis take off down the short flight of stairs in the back, hoping to provide aid from the ground.  
  
They take turns, emerging, firing at the men below – at least ten, all waving AK-47s around. If Jensen had to guess, he’d say they are the ones the team’s looking for  _–_  tying up loose ends. There’s a steady flow of cracks and whines – bullets flying millimeters from their heads.  
  
Some of the team’s shots hit their targets, taking a few down, but it’s more of a stalemate – the hostiles have some military jeeps as cover, and half the Alpha team pinned down.  
  
Jensen goes for another round. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Steve and Aldis making a stealthy approach from the side – but the distraction costs him a precious split-second he doesn’t have. Jensen doesn’t get down fast enough, and a bullet nicks his side.  
  
He falls back, wind knocked out of him, and hears Jared yell – his name, something along those lines – but can’t really process for a moment. He sucks in a sharp breath, palms along his ribs, his side  _–_  and when he brings his hand up, it comes away red, layered with a thin film of blood.  
  
It hurts like a motherfucker. It’s not the first time he’s been shot – but neither of those are memories he’s too fond of. He gets up, meets Jared’s gaze, and gives him a thumbs up.  
  
Which is probably the stupidest gesture he could have done – but Jared goes from pale as a sheet, from a white-knuckled grip on his gun to a semblance of normal breathing, to somewhat calm. Terrified eyes pierce through his – and Jensen can’t help but think how out of place the expression looks on Jared’s face. Jared, the guy who scoops bullets out of his leg with his knife.  
  
Jensen almost wants to laugh.  
  
And if their immediate world wasn’t crumpling in a bloody mess at the time, he probably would have.  
  
Jensen gets in a few more shots – and the steady rhythm from the other side wavers for a moment. There’s a deep, hollow sound – a bang, smoke, chaos and flames flickering from the ground. Jensen smiles. Steve and Aldis did a good job.  
  
A few seconds of relative silence – delayed, held over their heads – like they won. There’s a faint sound, a pin dropping on the ground.  
  
They turn, synchronized motion, in time to see a hand grenade rolling towards them, time slowed down. Instinct – double tap of the gun – and the man at the door drops dead a fraction after that – but it’s all the same, it doesn’t matter – it’s an end – they don’t have enough time.  
  
Jensen locks gazes with Jared over Chris’ head – and he knows – in that moment, he reads in Jared’s features all that ever mattered, all that’d kept him alive. Jared’s lips curve into the same smile – and it’s fitting – just like the start. Together. At least they have that.  
  
A moment later, the whole world turns black.  
  


~

  
  
Jensen’s dead.  
  
But there’s a niggling voice at the back of his mind. He doesn’t feel numb. And while he doesn’t expect an express ticket to heaven, or a Vegas weekend as the afterlife, he kind of figures that pain shouldn’t enter the equation when you’re blown to tiny bits and your brain is scattered on the wall.  
  
He blinks open his eyes.  
  
There’s a ceiling. He wonders why there’s no sky.  
  
Then, sound. First, faint, muffled, then drowned in a deafening, incessant ringing that smothers any coherent thought. A wall, solid and real behind him – and a sharp pain on his side. By this point, Jensen kind of figures out he’s alive.  
  
But he doesn’t understand how.  
  
And then it all comes back.  
Jared.  
  
Jensen turns, as much as his battered body allows him – scans frantically, breathing faster, chest suddenly tight – but Jared’s there, and he’s alive.  
  
Jared’s features are smeared by a spray of blood – he’s still – so still, Jensen revises his assessment for a single, terrifying thump of the heart. Jared blinks – and Jensen feels all the air leave him in a relieved breath – but something’s still not right.  
  
Jared’s eyes are fixed, blank, a dull mix of emotion that ultimately collapses in nothing, in an empty, vacant pretense of  _alive,_ and Jensen traces his line of sight.  
  
Well, at least it all makes sense now.  
  
There’s a finger.  
  
There’s a finger by his boot. Bloody, unattached to a hand.  
  
Jared’s uniform – red, dark crimson and brown. Liquid, trickling down. Guts.  
  
Jensen fights the urge to throw up.  
  
There’s pieces of Chris lying on the ground.  
  


~

  
  
Jared screams.  
  
At the top of his lungs. Mutely. Shredding, fragments of reality torn apart.  
  
Jensen’s yelling something at him.  
  
It’s far. Indistinct. It floats, mingles with the smell, burnt flesh, sickly sweet.  
  
Jared can’t breathe.  
  
Jensen’s looking up at him.  
  
Jared can’t see. Just touch, press down, feel the sticky liquid beneath his fingertips.  
  
Jensen’s wound  _–_  it’s bloody, it’s messy – it looks worse than it is.  
  
Jared’s scared. He’s scared shitless of what it means.  
  
That single second, that moment of selfishness he indulges in  _–_  he’s glad. He’s glad it was Chris.  
  
Jensen leans on him, breath coming in shaky sounds and the occasional hiss.  
  
Jared tightens his grip.  
  
Footsteps weave, track a path muddied by guilt.  
  


~

  
“Stay still.”  
  
They’re in the back of a Humvee they’d reclaimed from the people they killed, and Jensen’s never been so grateful for the Special Forces medical kit. Jared’s voice is steady, his hands even more so – the needle pierces flesh smoothly, and even though it hurts – Jensen knows how lucky he is – the bullet hit only muscle, missing any vital things.  
  
It’s far from ideal, just a patch job _–_  but it’s better than bleeding out in the middle of the street.  
  
Jared doesn’t speak.  
  
The tight set of his jaw, the frown – Jensen knows, has learned to read him. Jared’s sinking, searching for that part of consciousness that can concentrate on a single thing.  
  
Steve comes, asks how long it will be – some miles after they’d fled the scene, Jared had pulled over, barked an order at him to let him in the backseat – and promptly ignored all of Jensen’s protests that he was fine, that stopping would be a safety risk.  
  
Jared snaps  _–_   _as long as I need, Carlson –_ and thankfully, Steve figures out it’s not really the time to fuck with Jared, goes back to scanning the two-way street. It’s hard – Steve only got a shake of Jared’s head when he asked about Chris.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Jensen brings a hand to Jared’s shoulder, grips – and Jared stills.  
  
It’s funny – when Jared looks at him, all the color’s melting, his eyes soft, soothing, warm – where seconds before there was just mindless heat.  
  
“You good, Padalecki?”  
  
Jared huffs out a derisive laugh, sound broken and hollow, shattered piece by piece.  
  
“Not me that’s a hole away from Swiss cheese, Ackles.”  
  
No, Jared has other wounds that cut deep. Chris, throwing himself on a grenade to save them – to save Jensen – it makes the top of the list.  
  
Jensen knows – can’t help but wonder if Jared was right. If Chris wasn’t just a casualty of what they’d denied.  
  
Because he and Jared – they didn’t fear death.  
  
Not as long as they both went out.  
  
Jensen would say something, would search for reason and logic in the whole thing – but it would be no good, throwing out words that he himself doesn’t believe in.  
  
  


~

  
It’s like someone flicked off the switch.  
  
The shades of grey get lost in black and no white – Jared’s eyes take on a wild glint – savage, ruthless as he speaks.  
  
The man’s shaking, pleading with him – but Jared doesn’t listen, presses the blade deeper, breaking skin. The only good thing about all this was getting a prisoner out of it. A man who’d survived their own little explosion, courtesy of Steve. After he stitches Jensen, Jared flies out of the Humvee, yanks the man from where Aldis is guarding him.  
  
Jared pushes him against the vehicle, knife on his throat, pressing in – and Jensen knows – instinctually, he knows Jared would do anything. The paradox of always seeking redemption by doing the same things.  
  
The man must sense he’s seconds away from a death he’d already given the slip – because he talks, spills everything. People without training, without something strong enough to believe in – they give in. The fear wins, and Jared – well, Jared’s great at instilling it.  
  
An old building, ruins of a prison rebuilt – they get a location, and a body count to go with it.  
  
Jared raises the knife. The man slumps in defeat.  
  
Jared draws the blade lightly against the prisoner’s throat – a red line beads against swarthy skin. Eyes closed, the man starts mumbling what sounds like a prayer.  
  
Jared draws his arm back for the strike – there’s a scream – Jensen wants to believe – wants to think that when the blade buries deep in the man’s shoulder, Jared hadn’t thought about putting it through his heart.  Jared steps back, inhales sharply, in time with Jensen’s relieved breath. It’s not like any of them haven’t killed before – but. The reasons matter – humanity, last shreds of it.  
  
Jared turns away.  
  
Aldis shoves the Taliban soldier – with his hands tied, the man lands face first in the dirt – but that’s all the mercy they will show him. Jared signals Steve.  
  
They’re off, but Jared doesn’t get back in the driver’s seat.  
  


~

  
They don’t waste time.  
  
They have an extraction site, so they call for a chopper, have it ready to go on order – on standby.   
  
Jared’s worried – worried they’re not up to the task. They’re half a team – Jensen acts like nothing happened, but Jared knows he hurts just standing up. But they can’t put it off – it’s already been a day and a half, in a context where every second counts.  
  
The building’s not much. Old, paint chipping off the walls – without any serious security system – just guards. It’s a prison from another time – a macabre postcard in vintage brown.  
  
They make quick work of the few hostiles outside. It’s silent – things are going to go fubar soon enough – so they try to keep the element of surprise as much as they can.  
  
It doesn’t last long. The first echo of a gunshot, and the whole thing goes downhill fast. There’s insurgents coming out from every corner, every side. But it’s not chaos. Not to Jared – it’s lines. Quadrants. Each member of the team has one.  
  
He and Steve take the right – the heavy side. Steve goes for the straight line of sight, and Jared works counterclockwise from the middle to cover ground. Symmetry – Jensen and Aldis have the same task. They make it to a short flight of stairs – concrete cracked, worn down – and Jared signals Jensen and Steve to go ahead, while he and Aldis cover the rear.  
  
They find the cells – and only use half a magazine to clear a path. Jensen and Steve shoot the locks off – the doors are all a metallic gray – spots of dried blood mingled with rust splattered across.  
  
Jared watches the trail of bodies left behind, M16 drawn, waiting for another round. It’s instinctive, a hyper-awareness they all have – the same feeling that tells Jared that something’s not right.  
  
They dealt with the front lines – but besides a few bullets flying a little too close for comfort – it was a walk in the park. And if Jared learnt something in all his time in the service, he learnt that missions are never that – there’s always something looming in the shadows, waiting to attack.  
  
Sure enough, he hears Aldis shout – in time with a loud crash – and everything rattles with the force of the blast.  
  
Jared hates it when he’s right.  
  
The world goes a little fuzzy for a few moments before settling back. Jared’s shouting, a command to hurry it up, but it sounds weak to his own ears, voice muffled, like he’s underwater, nothing but a stifled scream coming out.  
  
They’re in one piece, for the most part. But Jensen’s stumbling as he’s helping one of the hostages up – and Steve’s forehead is coated in blood from where he hit the wall hard. Jared knows, this time a few bullets and well-placed flash-bangs aren’t going to be enough to get them out.  
  
It’s easy.  
  
When you see an end, a light – there’s calm.  
  
“Hodge.”  
  
Pieces of the ceiling are falling down. Vibrating  _–_  a soundtrack – gunfire, hollow, ascending rhythm of a drum.  
  
Aldis’s scrambling to fire back, but it’s too much – too many insurgents, too many angles, not enough time. At Jared’s voice, he stops, turns unwavering dark eyes. Jared’s proud. A whole team of stubborn motherfuckers that’ll die with their guns in their hands.  
  
But not now. Not this time.  
  
“There’s another exit, through the courtyard out back.”  
  
Aldis frowns, but lets Jared talk.  
  
“Take Carlson, Ackles, the hostages, and get out.”  
  
“Boss  _–_  “  
  
“That’s an order, Hodge.”  
  
It’s closer, sound of voices carried up – yells, orders, unmistakable flutter of Kalashnikovs in between. Jensen’s still struggling with the last lock.  
  
“It ain’t right.”  
  
Jared knows –  _leave no man behind._ But it’s an acceptable loss.  
  
And it’s his duty, his right to protect the men under his command. So Jared knows, Aldis won’t fight him on it.  
  
He extends a hand – and Aldis takes it, grips his forearm with his hand.  
  
 _Hoo-ah._  
  
Jared smiles.  
  
He doesn’t know if it’ll be enough. But he can try. For Chris. For Jensen. For a chance.


	8. Part Six

It’s not sacrifice.

Jared’s not a martyr. Martyrs don’t go out wondering how to up their kill count.

It’s an easy choice. A strategic response. A play. The only one.

It’s selfish. He welcomes a world that’s silent – faults, just tips of flames scratching at a sky, an elusive absolution painted in white. Where it burns the same, a hell that’s fluid, a river of fire that streams down skin, clutching, clinging, simmering with every breath, with every sigh, every pained whisper that echoes back around.

But Jared’s not there, not yet – and he wonders if it’s disappointment he’s feeling. Or fear, cleverly masked. His doesn’t remember his last thought. Just waiting, only a knife in his hands, drowning, too much, no chance.

Hollow thuds of gunfire. Smoke. Dust mingling, raising a blurry curtain. Then dark.

And now, here, trapped, in his own body, in his own mind.

He’s nobody. He’s the man who laughs, who jokes, who builds himself from scattered fragments, from jagged shards and somehow makes it stand. He’s anybody. He’s human, he’s faults more than anything else, he can’t, doesn’t want to admit that he sees no end, just death.

~

  
Jensen loses his voice.  
  
He screams, he cries, he hits. He fights, he falls, he gets back up. He screams, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.  
  
Or maybe it’s just in his head.  
  
Maybe he’s calm, maybe he’s meeting Aldis’ gaze, maybe the agony that wrenches the shallow breaths out of him is just a shadow, scraps of a different life, grinding together, ripping ruthlessly under his skin.  
  
The sound of the rotors whipping, tearing the heavy air apart, his mind – he can’t think. Jared’s not here, he’s gone, he’s fading away along with the bleary picture of the ground – he just can’t – wants to do about a million different things, wants to jump – but he’s trapped, Aldis’ strong hands gripping his biceps tight, holding, pinning him to the metallic side.  
  
Jensen lives. But he died.  
  


~

  
It’s easy, the first time. Until Jared understands – why he’s alive.  
  
He exists to be broken, paraded around – a trophy of war. They know – who he is, what he’s done – at least as a puppet, a figurine that falls in line.  _They_  – just shapes, silhouettes – headsmen with a blunt axe –  _they_ want him to admit to all his sins, to all his crimes – and Jared laughs, long and dark.  
  
He laughs, because he lost count.  
  


~

  
Jensen pleads. Until there’s no one to hear.  
  
A day, a slow and yet unsteadily fast flow of seconds, of thoughts – harrowing, draining him, hopelessness in drops – swallowing him, one breath at a time.  
  
A part of him – that part that’s not entirely whole, that shattered with Chris’ death – understands. What Jared did, and why – realizes he’d have done it the same, left without a goodbye. He knows Jared wouldn’t have done it if there had been any other way – if he had seen any other option, a solution, something that didn’t hurt as much.  
  
Jensen signs out of the hospital against medical advice after he’s been properly stitched up – they’ve given him something for the pain, and for a few moments – he forgets.  
  
There is anger – frustration, desperation – pain, in bursts, in a punch thrown at Aldis, in Jared’s smashed ashtray, in broken glass – smithereens, and Jensen sees only beads of blood.  
  
But. He wants it to hurt. To ground him, to center him – to remind himself of all he’d lost.  
  


~

  
Jared hears the sickening crunch of bone before he feels the pain – his finger, twisted, forced back – lines broken, unnatural and wrong.  
  
It’s not the first one.  
  
He cries out. Just like he did last time. But he follows it with a pant, a strangled line –  _That’s all you got? –_ because today is clichés, today he doesn’t know which way is up, and  _Hotel California_ is stuck on a loop in his mind – because today he does think to himself,  _this could be heaven, or this could be hell._  
  
All his cries struggle between tears and laughs – he deserves it, but he still has to fight, still wants to get out alive – and he doesn’t know if it’s fair, when Chris or Chad hadn’t, when they’d been better men and didn’t make it out.  
  
And then he thinks of Jensen, wonders where he is now.  
  
It’s bearable again.  
  


~

  
Kelly doesn’t cry.  
  
She hugs Jensen. She jokes – follows it with a grim laugh. Because she’s Chris’ wife – and Chris could be missing all his limbs, but as long as he had breath, he’d still make a crack.  
  
Jensen hugs her back. He holds tight. Because that’s what Jared would have done.  
  
She talks – frantic, sentences cut off – not sense, just sound, to fill the silence, forget what’s gone.  
  
Jensen lets her. He understands.  
  
He thinks about his brother.  
  
Scattered along a dirt road in Iraq. And that’s when he vows – he’ll get Jared – even if it’s in a pine box. It doesn’t matter. Not when  _home_  is gone, when it means nothing if Jared isn’t there, if Jared is lost in a pile of dust.  
  
Jensen covers Kelly’s hand with his, stilling the slight tremble of his hands.  
  


~

  
“I’m telling you, my favorite episode was when they froze the whole kitchen.” Blow. “They fucking ice skated, man.” Punch.  “And the Jello – that was just fucking genius.” His ribs – crack.  
  
“Shit.” Some shaky breaths – Jared hisses, but keeps his eyes open, hints of amusement flickering bright. “I take it you don’t like Tom and Jerry, then.”  
  
Jared wants to play. He swings his feet over that brink, insanity, madness, a lifeline, a splintered fragment of himself as the last defense.  
  
“So, tell me. Am I Tom or Jerry in this little play you can’t seem to get enough of?”  
  
Jared grins, crooked, lines and features forgetting the meaning, just patterns, mechanical routine.  
  
Jared sees the blow come. He just hopes it’s enough to make everything dark.  
  
  


~

  
The Colonel watches. Jensen doesn’t move. Calm, collected – because he knows what he has to do, how he wants to fight.  
  
“The objective of the mission was accomplished, Ackles. The privates and the corporal are eating dinner with their families as we speak. I’m not sure what you want me to do. ”  
  
“I need to go back, sir.”  
  
Colonel Morgan doesn’t look surprised. If anything, he settles for resigned.  
  
“So you’re asking me to send in another team – just to fetch a dead body – am I understanding this right?”  
  
Jensen grits his teeth.  
  
“Not a dead body, sir. A member of my team. A soldier who sacrificed everything.”  
  
The Colonel’s features don’t soften – dark eyes still cold, distant – not giving in. But there’s a twitch of his lips – minute, insignificant in the grand scheme of things – sad, broken, guilt of another kind.  
  
“Unit doctor still hasn’t cleared you for missions, Ackles.”  
  
Jensen quirks an eyebrow.  _Does it matter?_ Morgan nods, waits a few beats before he speaks.  
  
“Tomorrow morning. Six hundred hours. Friend of mine has a bird gathering rust in his backyard. Find a pilot, and a few idiots as crazy as you, and I’d be inclined to tell anyone who asked that you all felt the sudden urge to take a vacation to Tahiti.”  
  
It’s Jensen’s turn to nod. He stays silent – any word could fracture the last strand of hope.  
  
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Ackles?”  
  
Jensen does. The not-so-subtle hints. What it means – they’re caught, the country pretends they don’t exist. They die – just casualties, a picture on a wall, a gravestone lost among too many of the same kind.  
  
He salutes, makes his retreat.  
  


~

  
_Seconds, sifting through consciousness – fluttering strings of guitar. Wakey-wakey, Sergeant. We’re going to have fun._  
  
Jared has seen them all.  
  
People. Enemies. Executioners who aren’t given permission for the final act.  
  
All the same questions. Yelling. Sultry whisper. Level tone.  
  
Laughing. Just words. They’d lost their sense. Letters strung together. Sounds.  
  
Name. Rank. All he could say anymore – for a long time, all that defines him.  
  
He drifts off to sleep. An hour, two – time turns backwards, fades to a concept, and there’s just him.  
  
 _Walls of fire, ceiling sky blue. Melting. Skin, burning. Water over flames. See-through – trapped. Nobody hears you cry. Metallic screech suspended – turned to ice._  
  
The man gets too close. Jared can see it – the moment of triumph, when he sees Jared give up.  
  
He won. Or so he thinks. He brings his ear to Jared’s mouth.  
  
Confessions – there are none. Jared sinks his teeth in, and rips. Flesh tears, soft sound of silk ripped in half, lost inside an agonized scream.  
  
 _Killer. Always was. You enjoy it, Jay. Don’t tell lies._  
  
Jared grins, teeth coated in red. Taste of copper, feel of tender skin scraped by his teeth. He spits. The man screams – he never stopped – and blood slithers between his tormentor’s fingertips.  
  
It’s a single act of defiance. Jared watches, satisfied, would-be torturer’s hand covering the hole turning crimson as the man stumbles out.  
  
Seconds later, another man comes. He picks the ear up.  
  
Jared’s world goes dark.  
  
 _Tar. Boiling – seething – spilling – there’s nowhere to go. Help me. No edge, no limit, no light. Mom?_  
  
It’s a dream.  
  
Jensen. His first thought.  
  
He doesn’t know if Jensen made it out. Decides he must have. Jared hopes it’s morning where Jensen is. It was his favorite time.  
  
 _She shouts. You promised. She cries. He’ll never know his daddy. It’s you who should have died. She’s right._  
  
He’s cold. And hot. His throat feels dry. They come with water.  
  
He’s drowning. They stretch his mouth wide, hold a towel over it. Water, endless, too much – he’s dying. His body tells him so. But his mind knows. Knows he’ll survive, knows it’s just pain, fleeting proof of being alive. The flood pauses, he vomits, struggles for breath.  
  
In. Out. It starts all over again.  
  
 _Your fault. Worthless. Not enough. The smell. Vodka. Sweat. Whiskey and beer. Vomit. He cleans up._  
  
A man enters. Tall, thin under the traditional muddy white dress – under pants hang loose, brown vest playing up the frailty, the weakness.  
  
It’s an illusion. There’s a smile, a glint in his eyes – dark brown, burnt umber and no warmth.  
  
He’s the man in charge.  
  
 _Bloody hole in Chad’s forehead – Jared slowly lowers the gun. You killed me, Sarge – Chad sing-songs– thanks for blowing my fucking brains out._  
  
A different room. It’s all dark. No window, just a dim lightbulb. They hoist Jared up – he’s chained to the ceiling. Feet dangle above the floor. He’s burning. His shoulders, his back – the wrists, flesh already shredded, tiny rivers of crimson sliding down. Shoulders slowly wrenching from their sockets. He doesn’t struggle. Even breathing requires strength he’s not sure he has.  
  
The man watches. He has a grey vest this time.  
  
His name’s Ahmad. He talks.  
  
 _A skull, only the eyes present, alive. Scrapes, cracks – a snap. The cheekbone falls. Vacant and hollow. Ruins. All he leaves behind._  
  
Ahmad folds himself on the ground.  
  
“I wasn’t a terrorist.”  
  
His accent’s thick, but the speech fluid, English precise, meticulously worded and spit out.  
  
“I sold postcards.”  
  
Jared’s towering over him. But Ahmad is calm. Looks up – the certainty of a wronged man, knowing he has the enemy trapped. And Jared is. It hurts. His body, only flesh and bone, limits carved in pain, in screams, in cries. One eye is swollen shut. His tongue slides in the gaps of missing teeth, licks the taste of dried blood off his lips.  
  
Jared listens. Anything else, he can’t.  
  
“And there was war. One day, my own police put a bag over my head, turned me over to Americans for a nice sum of cash. It was after the planes. We were all terrorists then.”  
  
Jared knows the end to the story – he doesn’t want to – he wants to be blind to those parts.  
  
“They’d chain us hanging upside down, with women’s underwear over our heads. They hit, just because we made noise. We cried for home. We didn’t see light. They wanted answers we didn’t have.” His tone rises in volume, halts in a crash – words rushed. “They had parties – they piled us over each other, naked, only bags over our heads. And they’d hit. Whatever they could. The pain would always come. Even in the dark.”  
  
He rises, sudden and Jared recoils, wants to bring a leg up – wants to fight back. But he can’t. There’s a hand wrapped around his neck. Jared struggles to suck enough air into his lungs.  
  
Ahmad’s breath is stale, rotten – or maybe it’s the place, toxic, a vile stench.  
  
“They put our dicks in our hands. They lined us up, and they would watch. They would laugh. They put leashes on our necks, they dragged us around.” His fingers press deeper, and the bleak background turns hazy, blurry all around. “Like filthy animals, like the lowest of any kind. “  
  
Ahmad lets go. He doesn’t want Jared to die. He wants Jared to suffer. Like him. To feel every excruciating second – to beg for death and mercy.  
  
Jared will never do that.  
  
 _Pitying blue eyes. Nobody cares, boss. You’re dying. Alone. You ain’t worth it. You killed them all._  
  
No one comes.  
  
His lesson is done. He hangs, limp, helpless, only motion in his mind. How long, he can’t tell.  
  
It’s dark. The thick cotton itches. The bag smells foul.  
  
Days. Hours. Breaths, the only measure of time.  
  
He’d kill for a smoke right now.  
  
 _Stairways. No heaven. Round, round, always round. You can’t save her. Creamy purple clouds, dripping down._  
  
There’s no reality. No dreams. No songs stumbling through winding paths. Just fragments shattered, compressed, strung out. A silence without echoes. No mercy, no death.  
  
 _I was wrong. Jensen. Beautiful. Unseeing eyes. You did that._  
  
Jared hasn’t talked. They stopped asking.  
  
No questions. Not anymore, not since the only purpose has become vengeance. Maybe they knew, on some level. He wouldn’t give up.  
  
He wants to. Jared wants to be done.  
  
It would be so easy.  
  
Just rip the thread he’s hanging onto, let the stillness wrap him in cold arms.  
  
He doesn’t. Maybe because of Jensen. Maybe because of the flag.  
  
But the restless sleep doesn’t have a background of stars and stripes.  
  
Just green, easy and bright.  
  
 _I love you. You’re all that’s keeping me alive._  
  
Jensen’s soft lips, trace of a kiss left on his cheekbone. The curve of his jaw.  
  
A tender touch.  
  
 _Faces. Sandpaper, grinding over. Innocent lives. Flesh, hanging, rubbed raw._  
  
Countless.  
  
People he killed, shadows of a war that played only in his mind.  
  
 _Clay. Dry, cracking when lips curve into a smile. Chad. Chris._  
  
Faults.  
  
His.  
  
Always.  
  
He deserves it.  
  
 _Blissfully, silence._  
  
He doesn’t open his eyes.  
  


~

  
Days _–_ when every split-second felt too long.  
  
But they’re here.  
  
Aldis, Steve, Bravo Team – fighting – for nothing else than honor, for a cause – for a brother, for an ideal that had gotten lost in the mechanics of it. The goal, and not the ugly actions in between – and Jensen doesn’t waste time - indulging in trivial things – saying thanks.  
  
They land in the complex, substituting fearlessness for a plan.  It’s what Jared would do, it’s what he believes in – he wouldn’t care, would take on the world if it meant doing the right thing.  
  
They go in. Jensen prays to a God he doesn’t know if he still has a claim to, asks for there to be something – something to find – something he doesn’t have to cover with a flag and a pin.  
  


~

  
They fall to their knees.  
  
Jared falls, limp, boneless, a wretched imitation of a human, of motion, of the man Jensen can’t live without – Jensen catches him –  _always will –_ and it’s there, weak, thready, lost in bruised and flayed skin – a pulse. Jensen touches, holds tight –  he’s causing more pain, but right now, it doesn’t matter – he revels in the faint rhythm, ignores the chaos around him – and Steve’s yelling at him, Jensen can’t stop, there’s still more, still a world that’s exploding, still a world that’s crumbling around him.  
  
The sight that greeted him – that moment of not knowing – of Jared dangling brokenly from the low ceiling – a rage, a devastation he didn’t know he could feel – that’s the reason, the need to leave everything in ruins, to kill, maim, and forget any lines drawn in the sand.  
  
He presses a kiss to Jared’s forehead – doesn’t care who sees him, how much time is lost in the gesture – because it clears his heart, it smudges the dirt, overcomes the horrible feeling.  
  
And Jensen can breathe, finally – because Jared’s here, in his arms, and there’s still hazel eyes that’ll watch him, that will light up in a playful twinkle, that will get lost in inky rings of green when Jensen talks to him – if not now – one day – because they have time.  
  
They have time – Jensen swears it’s all they’ll need.


	9. Epilogue

  
Pain.

That’s all Jared feels.

His skin, grated, one layer at a time, peeled, flesh and crushed bone mingling, muscles twisted into dirty rags, ends chafed, dissolving under touch, just a transient reality in mud, crimson and off-white – Jared’s screaming, only nothing comes out because his mouth is sewn shut. Threads of silk, the only unwavering truth, silence bound in barbed wire, every string, every point of contact searing, sizzling – but that’s not right, because it’s not real, he’s dreaming, he must be, because there’s nothing left, nothing of himself to turn to shreds.

Jared wakes with a gasp, muted, in the suffocating dark.

Everything’s solid, until it’s not, until he gets lost, the ceiling pushing down, crushing weight, implacable  – panic, he’s drowning, he’s in the middle of the ocean, waves too high, too much – but Jensen’s there, his voice, low rasp carving out a life raft. Jared clings to it, lets the senseless words – _you’re home, I’m here, you’re all right, I got you, breathe –_ wash over him, drain the endless void he was tapped in – and he’s okay, or something like it, because he’s shaking, but Jensen’s there, pressing his chest to Jared’s back, enveloping, holding tight, until the only presence is  _safe, warm_.

And then Jared does breathe, stuttered, unsteady – until he finds a pattern, until he’s sure the world won’t come crumbling down if he’s too loud.

Jensen’s tracing invisible lines, over his skin, bruises, bandages and casts – it’s soothing, weaving, shaping firm ground, and Jared doesn’t talk, but he doesn’t drift off either.

He stares into the pitch-black, waiting for the first rays of light.

~

  
He can run.  
  
Shuffle. Limp. He can try.  
  
Jared can still pretend he has that. The nowhere, the black and white, a fragment of his mind that’s even, consistent all around, one that he doesn’t have to build from scratch. It still hurts, but not as much – Jared has been broken and reglued to start over again. A dull ache – in his shoulder, where it had been popped back into its socket, in his chest where breaths turn into sharp pants, in leg muscles that tremble and cramp – residual traces of a hell he’d survived.  
  
Only his splinted fingers itch for the grip of a gun, for a confidence that comes when you’re in command.  
  
Jared isn’t broken. Not when he doesn’t remember ever being whole. Just smithereens, shattered pieces of a reflection in Technicolor. A sketch only, of what he is, not what he should be. So he runs. Finds a desert, a solitude where truths mean nothing, where they’re just grains of sand.  
  
  


~

  
They’re at the bar, settled into normal, into a fragile replica of what they had – and Jared drags Jensen to his car, presses him against it, takes advantage of the dim light in the parking lot. Jensen’s eyes are wide, unsure, wary of another moment torn apart by stray thoughts. It’s been months.  
  
Jared hates it. Because Jensen’s always there, carrying Jared even when things get so bad it seems they’ll never be right. Jensen takes the burden – one word wrung from Jared at a time – disjointed, sense lost between here and another time – when the memories smother, choke – when it’s too much. Jared will never be able to tell Jensen everything. He wants to forget.  
  
He can’t.  
  
It’s him. The darkness, the horrors – inside him. It’s who he is.  
  
But he tries. To cover them with with Jensen’s words, touch – presence – because right now, it’s all Jared has.  
  
So Jared presses his lips to Jensen’s – they’re soft, even bitten raw – hopes it’s enough to make it right, to remind Jensen he’s fighting, that Jared doesn’t know if he’ll ever come back to himself, to what he was – if that was good enough – if the struggle between endless pain and agonizing numbness has an end in sight, but he wants to, he holds on, even when it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.  
  


~

  
Jared’s watching him, soft look in his eyes, as Jensen parades around in a towel, searching frantically for a pair of pants in all the boxes they’d managed not to unpack.  
  
“So, you’ll love me even if I’m not a professional badass?”  
  
It’s deceptively casual, like all the important questions are, and Jensen falters for a moment, wonders if this lives up to the illusion of a fresh start.  
  
“Who says I love you, Padalecki?”  
  
It’s thrown out around a smile, but Jensen has his back turned to the bed – the only piece of furniture they own right now – and for a split-second, he’s afraid he’s got it wrong. But Jared laughs, and it’s comforting, when Jensen knows how close he came to never hearing it again.  
  
“Nice try, Ackles. If you hadn’t badgered half a dozen people into crossing an ocean and a continent to save my sorry ass, I might have believed that.”  
  
Jensen turns, elusive pair of jeans in his hands.  
  
“Then why do you have to ask?”  
  
Jensen’s voice is steady, doesn’t give up how much he wants to say, to put into shallow sounds. They both know – it’s inconsequential, wind blowing over sand –  _possible nerve damage_ and  _psychological damage_ are just words, obstacles they’ll face and tear down.  
  
And if they can’t – well, for now, it’s one shaky step at a time.  
  


~

  
Jensen clasps the last of the buttons on the jacket – Jared’s fingers still aren’t agile enough – and trails a broad palm over it, smoothing out the tie underneath. His fingertips trace the lapel, the pins, checking the order, then move over to the sleeves, pushing out the creases and wrinkles, until Jared’s hand clamps down on his forearm, halting the mechanical movement, forgotten in a flash of what could have been.  
  
Jared looks good in Army greens. He looks like he can’t be broken. Like the invincible man he fooled Jensen into thinking he is.  
  
Jared’s quivering thumb erases a tear from Jensen’s cheekbone – and Jensen looks up, meets his eyes, again, for the millionth time –  _the first time –_ they’re flickering – a glint, a shimmer, a mirror image, an echo of another soul – and when Jared speaks, it’s barely audible, a whisper that hovers, spreads as a feeling, a moment worth each second multiplied tenfold.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Jensen nods.   
  
He takes a step back, holds out a hand.  
  
Jared takes it, his grip tight, crushing – here.  _Alive._  
  


~

  
There should be guns firing in the distance. An Honor Guard.  
  
Instead, silence.  
  
Two empty graves.  
  
A salute.  
  
They leave, hand in hand. 


End file.
